Arovella Therapeutics Ltd (ASX:ALA) has presented data characterising its CD19-targeting allogeneic cell therapy, ALA-101, at the prestigious American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting in San Diego, USA.
The data summarises two distinct phenotypes of cells within the drug product, each of which plays a different role in responding to tumour cells.
In particular, ALA-101 CAR-iNKT cells were separated based on whether or not they produced CD4 on their surface (CD4+ vs CD4-).
Cells negative for CD4 (CD4-) were better able to kill target tumour cells via the CD19 Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR). In contrast, CD4+ cells proliferated faster in response to CD19+ tumour cells.
The two groups of cells also produced a different cytokine response following CAR activation.
Range of phenotypes
Arovella managing director and CEO Dr Michael Baker said: “We are delighted to have been accepted to present our data at the AACR conference.
"This work highlights the importance of having a final CAR-iNKT cell product that has a range of phenotypes to drive the optimal clinical outcome in killing cancer cells.
"We look forward to progressing ALA-101 towards Phase 1 clinical trials in humans.”
Arovella is a biotechnology company focused on developing its invariant Natural Killer T (iNKT) cell therapy platform.
Encouraging study results
The ALA-101 manufacturing process maintains a highly cytotoxic population of CAR-iNKT cells that target CD19-positive tumour cells.
ALA-101 contains diverse subsets of cells with different and complementary mechanisms of responding to tumour cells.
The outcomes of Arovella’s studies have shown encouraging results, supporting the potential benefit of having diverse subsets among CAR19-iNKT cells for treating CD19+ cancers.
Arovella’s proprietary iNKT manufacturing method is specifically designed to maintain the highly cytotoxic CD4- population, thus maintaining a healthy balance of cells with different mechanisms of responding to tumour cells.