PARIS, December 9 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) – Smart Immune SAS, a clinical stage T cells in medicine company using its proprietary ex vivo biomimetic technology “thymus-in-a-dish” to expand progenitor T cells (ProTcell ™) for reset a rapid immune reconstitution, safe and complete, today announced a research collaboration with the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK). The objective of this collaboration is to expand its pipeline with ProTcell platform CAR-ProTcell ™ new generation designed to meet the depletion of T cell therapy and meet unmet medical needs in cancer treatment liquids and solids.

This collaboration was set up to rapidly develop the next generation of CAR-T cell therapies. Thanks to its revolutionary ex vivo thymus technology, Smart Immune aims to disrupt conventional approaches to CAR-T cell therapy using its T cell progenitors, ie. ProTcell ™ instead of mature T cells and generates a naïve, long-lasting, non-depleted CAR-T cell population. As part of this collaboration, MSK will contribute to the development of the CAR-ProTcell platform with a first proof of concept (POC) in a mouse-to-mouse model, and Smart Immune will lead the humanized POC model. This work has the potential to accelerate the clinical development of next-generation CAR-T cells combining long-term persistence, natural protection against infection, and low risk of GvHD in an allogeneic setting.

Refinement on the early work of the Company’s scientists (Moirangthem et al., 2021) Demonstrating that ProTcell progenitor cells can be efficiently transduced with a lentiviral vector, scientists MSK and Smart-Immune plan to further optimize the conditions transduction and culture for studies préliniques in vitro and in vivo transduced ProTcell a lentiviral vector CD19 CAR.

“The presence or absence of CD19 + cells in NSG mice after HSC transplantation would indicate how efficient this new generation of CAR-T cells is and will be the first example of a naive CD19-CAR-T generated from an early precursor. T cells (ProTcell ™) obtained in culture. It would be a huge step forward for the gene therapy space, ”said Dr Marina Cavazzana, co-founder and medical director of Smart-Immune. In this way, the direct tumor targeting ability of CAR-CD19-Pro-T cells can be quickly assessed in a mouse model.

“MSK and Smart-Immune will work together to foster the development of Smart-Immune’s next generation CAR-ProTcell platform,” commented Dr. Marcel van den Brink, Head of the Hematologic Malignancies Division at MSK and Collaborating Scientist . “We look forward to continuing our research into a novel therapeutic class of CAR-T cells using lymphoid progenitor T cells, which, due to their ten-year lifespan, would remain depleted and have extended viability, compared to current CAR-T therapies using mature T lymphocytes.

Dr van den Brink provides advisory services for Smart Immune.

About Smart Immune
Smart Immune’s mission is to make T cell therapy accessible and affordable to all patients and, through its revolutionary ProTcell ™ platform, has developed clinical-stage T cell progenitors designed to improve the prognosis of patients affected by cancers and infections. The company uses its unique ex vivo “thymus in a box” biomimetic technology to cultivate specific subpopulations of T cell progenitors on a clinical scale and use them for cell or gene therapy. The company was founded in 2017 by Dr Isabelle André, Karine Rossignol and Dr Marina Cavazzana from the Necker-Enfants Malades AP-HP Hospital, pediatric hematologist and pioneer of vector therapies and hematopoietic stem cell treatments.

About ProTcell ™
The Smart Immune ProTcell ™ platform generates allogeneic T cell progenitors that deliver fully functional polyclonal T cells within 3 months of allogeneic HSCT while also reducing GvHD, infections and relapses, thereby reducing morbidity and disease. mortality and improving the risk-benefit ratio for allogeneic medicine. When infused, ProTcell ™ progenitors migrate to the patient’s thymus where they dilate, are selected and then differentiate, resulting in fully functional T cells that are tolerant of the patient’s own immune system and reactive to viral, fungal antigens. and smart. ProTcell ™ has been accepted by the FDA as an Investigational New Drug (IND) for Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL) and Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) and has also received Expedited Designation under its Accelerated Program for Diseases serious like SCID. In 2021, the FDA granted orphan drug designation to ProTcell ™ as a treatment to improve cell transplantation in patients receiving hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), including blood malignancies and all forms of immunodeficiency. primary. ProTcell ™ is currently under investigation in two clinical trials in Europe, two of which in the United States are expected to start in early 2022. To learn more, please visit www.smart-immune.com