On June 15, 2022 Affini-T Therapeutics, Inc., a biotechnology company unlocking the power of T cells against oncogenic driver mutations, and Metagenomi, Inc., a genetic medicines company with a versatile portfolio of next-generation, wholly-owned gene editing tools, reported a partnership to enable Affini-T’s next generation ex vivo T cell receptor (TCR) cell therapies for solid tumor patients using Metagenomi’s novel proprietary gene editing systems (Press release, Affini-T Therapeutics, JUN 15, 2022, View Source [SID1234616010]).
Schedule your 30 min Free 1stOncology Demo!
Discover why more than 1,500 members use 1stOncology™ to excel in:
Early/Late Stage Pipeline Development - Target Scouting - Clinical Biomarkers - Indication Selection & Expansion - BD&L Contacts - Conference Reports - Combinatorial Drug Settings - Companion Diagnostics - Drug Repositioning - First-in-class Analysis - Competitive Analysis - Deals & Licensing
Schedule Your 30 min Free Demo!
"We are delighted to announce our partnership with Metagenomi and to apply their next-generation gene editing systems to our cell therapies targeting oncogenic and viral driver genes, including KRAS and p53, to provide the greatest impact for patients across a variety of hard-to-treat solid tumor types," said Jak Knowles, M.D., Co-founder, President and Chief Executive Officer, Affini-T Therapeutics. "By working with Metagenomi, we will gain access to powerful, novel gene editing tools to make precise and multiplex edits to immune cells, thereby optimizing the effector function of our cell-based therapeutics."
"With this collaboration, Metagenomi is executing on its ex vivo therapeutics partnering strategy in the immuno-oncology space. We are especially excited to partner with the outstanding team at Affini-T and its scientific founder Dr. Phil Greenberg, who has fundamentally advanced this field. We believe that cell therapy, combined with our powerful gene editing tools, is the future of immuno-oncology, treating patients with the highest unmet medical need," said Brian C. Thomas, Ph.D., Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Metagenomi. "Our strategy in cell therapy strives to create a broad pipeline of licensed, partnered and in-house development programs with leading scientific teams."
The partnership will leverage Metagenomi’s proprietary gene editing systems to complement Affini-T’s state-of-the-art TCR discovery and synthetic biology platforms to generate groundbreaking cell therapy products. Affini-T will have the option to exclusively license Metagenomi’s technology to make gene edits in autologous TCR T cell therapies for specific tumor targets, with the option to expand non-exclusively to editing certain allogeneic approaches. In the future the parties will discuss further targets for co-development and co-commercialization.
Under the terms of the agreement, Metagenomi will be entitled to receive tiered payments for each optioned cancer target plus additional milestone and royalty payments.