BrightPath Biotherapeutics and Artisan Bio Announce Research and Licensing Agreement to Accelerate Development of BrightPath’s Novel Allogeneic iPSC Derived Cell Therapy Platform across Multiple Indications

BrightPath Biotherapeutics Co., Ltd., a clinical stage biotechnology company focused on the development of cell therapies derived from invariant natural killer T (iNKT) cells, and Artisan Bio. Inc, a precision genome engineering and drug discovery company, announced they have signed a research and licensing agreement to accelerate BrightPath’s next-generation iNKT cell therapies to clinic.

“This collaboration with Artisan provides BrightPath with the potential to create highly engineered allogeneic iNKT cellular therapy programs for a range of indications, including solid tumors,” said Kenichi Nagai, BrightPath CEO. “Artisan’s STAR-CRISPR system, and their leading editing efficiencies in iPSC cells, will enable BrightPath’s iNKT cell therapies to solve the persistence and efficacy problems faced by first generation allogeneic CAR-T programs.”

“We are excited for the BrightPath collaboration and the development of highly engineered iPS cells for cell therapy,” said Ryan Gill, Artisan Bio CEO. “The BrightPath products will build upon our leading STAR-CRISPR platform, our highly optimized guides for allogeneic and proprietary target genes, and our rigorous off-target safety profiling.”

Under this agreement, BrightPath will pay Artisan an upfront payment and research milestones for the development of CRISPR guides for the editing of BrightPath’s iNKT cells. BrightPath has the right to a commercial license for the STAR-CRISPR guides and nuclease for a license fee plus development milestones, sales milestones, and a royalty on future products.