WEST PALM BEACH, FL., November 11, 2020 – EXUMA Biotech Corp., a clinical-stage biotechnology company discovering and developing CAR-T products and delivery solutions for liquid and solid tumors, today announced that preclinical data for the company’s next-generation rapid point-of-care, or “rPOC”, subcutaneous (SC) autologous CAR-T platform, are being presented today in an e-poster at the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer’s (SITC) 35th Anniversary Annual Meeting and Pre-Conference, November 9-14, 2020.
The e-poster presentation titled “Rapid Point-of-Care Subcutaneous CAR-T from Blood Draw to Injection in 4 Hours with Modified LV Encoding CARs and Synthetic Driver Elements Enables Efficient CAR-T Expansion and Tumor Regression” is part of the Cellular Therapies/Chimeric Antigen Receptors (CARs) category and is accessible for attendees within the SITC virtual meeting platform. Additionally, Abstract #117 is available under the abstract tab at www.sitcancer.org/2020/home. The poster will be presented today, Wednesday, November 11th, from 5:15-5:45 pm EST and Friday, November 13th, from 4:40-5:10 p.m. EST.
EXUMA has developed this novel, viral-based rPOC platform to enable same-day autologous CAR-T administration. The platform is made possible by viral vectors that are engineered to display T cell-activating elements on the viral envelope and to encode “drivers” of T cell engraftment, in addition to chimeric antigen receptors.
Animal models presented at SITC reveal that exposure of peripheral blood to these viral vectors for just four hours, followed by subcutaneous injection to create a synthetic lymph node, resulted in robust CAR-T cell expansion (>10,000 fold) with regression of established tumors. Interestingly, administration of the same products intravenously in the same animal model did not support significant CAR-T cell expansion or control tumor growth.
“Today’s data represent a snapshot from over four years of internal research and development at EXUMA to mature this technology with the objective of delivering new solutions for speed and accessibility to cancer patients with significant unmet needs,” said EXUMA Biotech Chairman and CEO Dr. Gregory Frost, Ph.D. “Through this subcutaneous ‘lymph node’ approach with modified lentiviruses and driver domains, rPOC SC may reduce the complexity of CAR-T, while maintaining the ability of CAR-T cells to expand, persist and exert anti-tumor activity.”
EXUMA’s “rPOC” Platform
EXUMA’s next-generation rapid point-of-care or “rPOC” platform is being developed for subcutaneous CAR-T administration in a matter of hours following blood draw, with the potential to make same-day autologous CAR-T a reality for cancer patients. The long-term vision is for rPOC to be administered in the community oncology infusion clinic without the need for lymphodepleting chemotherapy or long-term immunosuppression.
About EXUMA Biotech Corporation
EXUMA Biotech Corp. is a private Delaware corporation formed in November 2015 with operations in West Palm Beach, Florida, the Cayman Islands and Shanghai, China. EXUMA leverages its globally integrated science, development and informatics teams located across multiple time zones to accelerate the design, high-throughput screening, discovery and development of chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) candidates for both solid and liquid tumor malignancies. The company is developing logic gated CAR-T platforms to advance TME-restricted cellular therapies for solid tumors, platforms that will allow for same day, rapid point of care (rPOC) administration for solid or liquid tumors, and highly scalable systems for global therapy deployment, beginning in Asia. Learn more at exumabio.com.
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