On May 12, 2026 MiNK Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: INKT), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing allogeneic invariant natural killer T (iNKT) cell therapies for cancer and immune disorders, reported data being presented at the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy Annual Meeting (ASGCT 2026) in Boston, Massachusetts. The data demonstrate that agenT-797, MiNK’s off-the-shelf, allogeneic iNKT cell therapy produces fundamentally different, disease-appropriate immune responses in patients with solid tumors and patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), driven by the intrinsic biology of iNKT cells rather than genetic modification.

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The data, to be presented in Poster 3371 on May 14, 2026, by Dr. Yan demonstrates that the same agenT-797 product, manufactured from the same donor batch and administered without modification, drove a TH1 pro-inflammatory immune program in 34 patients with solid tumors and a TH2 anti-inflammatory immune response in 20 patients with ARDS. The findings were consistent across multiple manufacturing batches and donors, establishing platform reproducibility at scale.

"The same off-the-shelf cell — from the same donor, same manufacturing batch — drives inflammation in a tumor and restores immune homeostasis in a failing lung. Without modification. Without engineering. That is intrinsic iNKT biology, and it is the foundation of a scalable platform we believe is applicable across oncology, critical illness, and beyond. To our knowledge, no prior cellular therapy platform has demonstrated this type of disease-directed immune response across two fundamentally different diseases from a single manufacturing run," said, Jennifer Buell, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer, MiNK Therapeutics.

These findings further support the scalability and consistency of MiNK’s proprietary manufacturing platform, which is designed to isolate donor-derived iNKT cells and reproducibly expand them to billions of cells per donor while preserving intrinsic biological activity across disease settings. agenT-797 is cryopreserved, HLA-independent, and requires no lymphodepletion, supporting potential use across acute critical care, oncology, and post-transplant immune dysfunction.

ASGCT Poster 3371: Context-Dependent Immune Reprogramming in Cancer and ARDS

Clinical evidence of effector function: agenT-797 was associated with tumor clearance and durable response in patients with cancer, including complete resolution of metastatic disease in germ cell testicular cancer treated with agenT-797 plus anti-PD-1 (Garmezy et al., Oncogene, 2025). In ARDS, agenT-797 was associated with improved survival and radiographic resolution of ARDS relative to in-hospital controls, including clearance of carbapenem-resistant Pseudomonas pneumonia in a 21-year-old patient on veno-venous ECMO.
In 34 solid tumor patients (NCT05108623), agenT-797 infusion produced rapid IFN-gamma elevation — a TH1 pro-inflammatory signature consistent with anti-tumor immune activation.
In 20 ARDS patients (NCT04582201), the same product from the same manufacturing donor batch produced IL-4 and IL-13 elevation — a TH2 anti-inflammatory signature consistent with immune restoration and lung injury recovery.
Favorable safety profile: Immune activation across both oncology and ARDS settings occurred without evidence of uncontrolled cytokine release syndrome or pathologic hyperinflammation, supporting a favorable therapeutic index appropriate for the ICU setting.

"What makes these findings compelling is that we are observing the same unmodified iNKT cell product generate fundamentally different immune responses across distinct disease states in a biologically coherent and clinically relevant manner," said Terese C. Hammond, MD, Head of Inflammatory and Pulmonary Diseases, MiNK Therapeutics. "These findings support the idea that iNKT cells function as coordinated immune effectors capable of dynamically modulating inflammatory and restorative pathways based on the disease environment. In critical illness, effective therapy may require coordinated immune activation, restoration, and pathogen-directed response occurring simultaneously. The Phase 1/2 clinical data suggested this biology was possible; the ASGCT (Free ASGCT Whitepaper) findings now provide mechanistic evidence supporting how agenT-797 may achieve those effects."

(Press release, MiNK Therapeutics, MAY 12, 2026, View Source [SID1234665582])