Progenitor Life Sciences Announces Kandinsky Safety Technology Controlling Growth And Survival Of Genetically Altered Cells In Human Therapies

SALT LAKE CITY--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Progenitor's Kandinsky™ proprietary technology addresses safety concerns in CAR-T cell design by enabling complete, continuous control over the fate of engineered cells in vivo. Kandinsky™ complements the suite of unique technologies introduced by Progenitor that are focused on achieving cost-effective production of ‘off-the-shelf’ cellular immunotherapies.

Clinical trials with CAR-T therapies targeting hematologic malignancies show great potential but are associated with varying toxicities, some of them life-threatening. Next-generation off-the-shelf cellular immunotherapies employ cells from healthy unmatched donors, raising concerns for graft rejection or graft-versus-host disease in patients. Incorporating ‘suicide genes’ into engineered cells is one approach to improving the safety of these therapies. Weaknesses of suicide gene approaches are that induction of new selection pressure in proliferating cells causes development of ‘escape mechanisms’ permitting growth and expansion of engineered cell grafts, despite activation of suicide genes. Activation of suicide genes typically delays, but ultimately fails to prevent, serious adverse events in patients.

CSO Tim Graham states: “Progenitor’s Kandinsky™ technology introduces a revolutionary and more reliable approach to eliminating bad-acting grafts. Kandinsky™ overcomes limitations of suicide genes by intentionally engineering therapeutic cells with in-born errors of metabolism that require constant rescue in order for grafted cells to persist and exert their intended or unintended biologic activities in the recipient. To make this possible, Progenitor developed a series of ‘rescue strategies’ based on non-toxic, well-tolerated small molecules–nearly all them are orally bioavailable medications with long track-records of safety—that can be used to control the fate of therapeutic grafts in vivo. We designed Kandinsky™ to ensure that by simply removing the rescue molecule for a few days, we can induce rapid apoptosis and cell death in engineered grafts starting to exhibit dangerous toxicities in patients.”

Specific metabolic defects incorporated into Kandinsky™ cells are drawn from naturally occurring, ‘escape-proof’ metabolic defects that block proliferation or survival of cells in vivo.

About Progenitor Life Sciences

Progenitor Life Sciences develops platform solutions for cellular immunotherapy and immune oncology. Our unique proprietary solutions include patented iPSC sourcing and immune-compatibility technology, enabling creation of allogeneic ‘off-the-shelf’ CAR immune cell constructs from a variety of cell sources. Progenitor partners with pharma/biotech companies providing access to its unique suite of technologies.

http://www.progenitorlifesciences.com