On December 14, 2023 Carisma Therapeutics Inc. (Nasdaq: CARM) ("Carisma" or the "Company"), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering and developing innovative immunotherapies, reported the nomination of its first lead candidate under the collaboration with Moderna, Inc. (Nasdaq: MRNA) (Press release, Carisma Therapeutics, DEC 14, 2023, View Source [SID1234638582]). This first lead candidate will target an antigen present on a solid tumor with significant unmet medical need. This strategic collaboration brings together Carisma’s chimeric antigen receptor macrophage (CAR-M) platform with Moderna’s messenger RNA (mRNA) and lipid nanoparticle (LNP) technologies to generate and develop in vivo CAR-M therapeutics for oncology.
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"Following the compelling pre-clinical proof of concept data shared at SITC (Free SITC Whitepaper) 2023, we believe in vivo CAR-M therapeutics that utilize Moderna’s mRNA/LNPs have the potential to benefit patients with a broad variety of cancers," stated Michael Klichinsky, PharmD, PhD, Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer at Carisma. "The delivery of this first candidate demonstrates our ability to create novel in vivo CAR therapies that can be advanced toward the clinic. We are proud of the significant contributions made by both of the scientific teams at Carisma and Moderna towards this exciting program. We look forward to completing IND-enabling studies with the lead candidate and are excited about the prospect of bringing this therapy forward for patients with advanced solid tumors together with Moderna."
Lin Guey, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer of Therapeutics Research Ventures and Biotherapeutics at Moderna, stated, "We are excited with the progress we’ve made to advance in vivo cell therapy (CAR-M) in collaboration with Carisma. Combining Carisma’s deep expertise in myeloid cell biology with our mRNA/LNP platform has allowed us to quickly advance the first lead candidate and we look forward to furthering its development, along with our continued collaboration with Carisma to develop novel therapies to treat patients."
Pre-clinical proof of concept data were recently presented at SITC (Free SITC Whitepaper) 2023, demonstrating the feasibility, efficacy, and tolerability of the in vivo CAR-M platform that utilizes Moderna’s optimized mRNA encapsulated in LNPs and is designed to redirect endogenous myeloid cells to exert targeted anti-tumor activity. The highlighted data demonstrated that Carisma’s CAR-M therapy can be directly produced in vivo, or within the body, and can successfully redirect endogenous myeloid cells against tumor-associated antigens using Moderna’ mRNA/LNPs. This novel approach to cancer immunotherapy offers an off-the-shelf solution that has the potential to increase access to CAR-based therapies and to be the basis of any CAR-M programs discovered or developed under the Carisma and Moderna collaboration.