Highlights
- Imugene and NIT have entered into a research collaboration to enhance cancer treatments.
- The strategic collaboration is for two years, effective immediately.
- IMU’s azer-cel together with NIT’s NT-17 will be examined to increase the cancer-fighting properties of T cells in patients during the treatment with azer-cel.
Imugene Limited (ASX: IMU) has entered into a two-year strategic collaboration with NeoImmuneTech, Inc. (NIT).
The partners will assess the ability of NIT’s immune cell amplifier NT-17 to increase the number of IMU’s azer-cel allogenic CAR T cells per batch during the manufacturing stage.
The preclinical work will focus on evaluating azer-cel in combination with NT-17 to increase the number and cancer-fighting properties of the patients own T cells during the treatment with azer-cel.
NIT is a clinical-stage T-cell-focused biopharmaceutical firm.
The strategic collaboration is effective immediately, and under the research plan, relevant research activities are planned to be conducted in the United States exclusively.
IMU will fund its part of the collaboration by its existing planned research activities. Under the strategic collaboration, IMU does not require additional funds for the initial activities.
About azer-cel
Azer-cel is Imugene’s allogenic CD19 CAR T cell therapy program which has shown clinically meaningful activity with a safe profile in blood cancers such as leukaemia and lymphoma.
About NT-17
NT-17 is presently in the clinical-stage development. It is the only long-acting human IL-7 cytokine. It plays a significant role in development and survival of T cells, enhances cancer fighting T cell numbers, their functionality and health to boost the immune system, and delivers improved cancer fighting advantages to patients.
NT-17 has demonstrated favourable stability, safety and activity profiles on patient dosing, when compared to naturally occurring IL-7. This shows that it is an ideal combination for cell therapy drugs such as azer-cel.
IMU shares traded at AU$0.092 apiece at the time of writing on 12 December 2023.