Phase one testing in the United States of one of Chimeric Therapeutics’ latest cancer fighting innovations has yielded exciting final toxicity and anti-rejection testing results as it looks to roll out its ground-breaking cell therapy technology.
The company’s cell therapy approach is to take blood from a patient, treat it with the company’s proprietary protein therapy platform and then reinject it back into the patient where the ‘reprogrammed’ blood cells exclusively attack the cancer cells, in this case the highly lethal glioblastoma brain tumours.
The recent innovation, the CORE NK platform, aims to use off the shelf and then mass-produced cell therapy products from healthy donors, instead of the existing practice of using blood donated from the patient themselves.
Chimeric said the primary objective of the trial was determining toxicity safety followed by testing for the possible rejection and subsequent long-term persistence, that is the survival rate of the introduced treated cells.
It said the tests has established a positive safety profile with no sign of possible side effects such as Graft versus Host Disease, Cytokine Release Syndrome, or Dose Limiting Toxicities.
The testing focused on nine heavily pre-treated patients with blood cancers and solid tumors and were administered two infusions at differing CORE NK dosages.
In addition to minimal side effects, significant numbers of patients showed a reduction or a stabilising of their respective cancers.
Chimeric Therapeutics Chief Executive Officer, Jennifer Chow said: “We are incredibly excited to share these data as we believe that it demonstrates the transformational potential for our CORE NK platform.”
“By establishing safety without GvHD, substantial efficacy with a highly durable CR, robust ex vivo expansion and promising persistence of cells without exogenous cytokine support we now have a strong foundation upon which to amplify our therapeutic efficacy. We look forward to rapidly advancing the multiple development paths planned for CORE NK in both blood cancers and solid tumors.”
Chimeric’s development partner, the Ohio-based Wesley Centre for Immunotherapy, said the data from the Phase 1 study was extremely encouraging and demonstrated an optimal safety profile with strong early signs of clinical benefit for patients.
The Centre said it would continue to collaborate with Chimeric to continue developing the program for blood cancers and to further optimise the platform for solid tumours through the incorporation of specific CARs and other enhancements.
Chimeric has also developed other complementary cell therapies that are in the testing phase. These include a third-generation innovation to treat neuroendocrine tumours, colorectal, pancreatic and gastric cancers invented at the University of Pennsylvania and currently in preclinical development with a planned phase one clinical trial in 2022.
Ruling out any potentially dangerous side effects to humans is the first step in ascertaining if a treatment can actually be effective in its stated aims. Chimeric and its partner seem to have established CORE NK’s initial safety in its small sign whilst getting early indications that its cancer fighting abilities also pass the test.
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By Matt Birney
