ElevateBio, LLC (ElevateBio), a technology-driven company focused on powering transformative cell and gene therapies, and Affini-T Therapeutics, a biotechnology company unlocking the power of T cells against oncogenic driver mutations, announced a partnership to advance Affini-T’s engineered TCR-T therapies focused on KRAS (Kirsten rat sarcoma viral oncogene homolog), one of the most prevalent oncogenic driver mutations in solid tumor cancers. Affini-T will leverage ElevateBio BaseCamp’s LentiPeakTM lentiviral vector technology platform and cell therapy production capabilities to advance its investigational oncogenic driver programs into clinical development. ElevateBio BaseCamp is a purpose-built viral vector and cell therapy center of excellence with end-to-end process development and current Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP) manufacturing capabilities for research, clinical and commercial cell and gene therapies, and regenerative medicines.
“Affini-T is pioneering novel T cell therapy approaches to treat solid tumor cancers by striking at the core of tumor biology, which entails leveraging the most advanced tools and techniques in cell engineering,” said Kim Nguyen, Ph.D., Chief Technical Officer, Affini-T Therapeutics. “Deep expertise in autologous cellular therapies manufacturing and analytics combined with its scalable platform for suspension-based lentiviral production, make ElevateBio an ideal partner as we progress our oncogenic driver programs into the clinic and work to deliver transformative therapies to patients and their families.”
“We are pleased that our LentiPeak platform and cell therapy expertise can enable innovative developers like Affini-T to further accelerate their pipeline and look forward to working together so that we can bring forth these important therapies for difficult to treat solid tumors,” said David Hallal, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ElevateBio. “At ElevateBio, we’ve combined multiple next-generation technology platforms with industry-leading expertise to transform the current cell and gene therapy development paradigm and provide our partners with a strategic advantage in the development of their therapies, and ultimately improve the speed of novel therapies to patients.”
Affini-T’s proprietary platform is designed to select and engineer the right immune cells to orchestrate a durable and coordinated immune response within the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment. The company is pioneering engineered T cell therapies with cutting-edge synthetic biology and gene editing enhancements to target oncogenic driver mutations at the core of tumor biology. Its engineered cell therapies are designed to overcome the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment, enhancing T cell function to increase durability, build persistent responses, and augment tumor infiltration. Affini-T’s investigational cell therapies have the potential to offer new treatment options for patients affected by cancer with mutant variants of KRAS, which account for up to 30% of all cancers and are particularly frequent in cancers with high mortality rates, including lung cancer, colorectal cancer, and pancreatic cancer.