Atara Bio CEO: Company’s Momentum in Cell Therapy Should Continue in 2021

Atata CEO Pascal Touchon pictured above. Photo courtesy of Atara. 

Atara Biotherapeutics closed out 2020 by hitting multiple developmental milestones, a $175 million stock offering and a collaboration worth nearly $700 million with Bayer for the development of off-the-shelf T-cell immunotherapy for high mesothelin-expressing tumors.

Atara Chief Executive Officer Pascal Touchon believes the positive momentum will continue for his company through the coming months of 2021. Touchon, who led the Novartis effort to develop its CAR-T drug Kymriah, said the next few years will be important in the cell therapy space and Atara, with its allogeneic platform, will be among the companies leading the way.

“Cell therapy is going to be a key element in this next decade and I truly believe that with cell therapy we can come up with a cure for cancer and autoimmune diseases,” Touchon told BioSpace in an interview ahead of the annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare meeting.

Atara’s allogeneic CAR T therapy is designed to improve upon current CD19 targeted CAR T therapies by leveraging 1XX CAR signaling technologies built on the company’s novel EBV T-cell platform. It was this allogeneic platform that attracted Touchon to the company after he spent several years developing Novartis’ autologous CAR-T cell therapy.

Autologous therapies use cells taken directly from the patients, which are then engineered before being re-administered to the patients in hopes of boosting the body’s immune response to the cancer cells. Allogeneic therapies take cells from other donors and then manufacture them for use in multiple patients.

Touchon joined Atara in the middle of 2019 and hit the ground running. Since that time, the company has hit multiple milestones and is poised to see potential approval of the first allogenic CAR-T program in cancer. The company’s lead asset, tab-cel (tabelecleucel), is currently in Phase III as a potential treatment for in Epstein-Barr virus-driven post-transplant lymphoproliferative disease (PTLD). The company remains on track to finalize its Biologics License Application in the third quarter of this year. In late 2020, the company announced a positive interim analysis of the Phase III study that showed a 50% objective response rate in patients following hematopoietic cell transplants (HCT) or solid organ transplants. The safety profile remained consistent with previously published data. If the BLA is accepted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and ultimately approved, Touchon said tab-cel could become the first allogeneic cell therapy approved by the FDA.

Other milestones the company hit in the waning months of 2020 include the regulatory acceptance of the Investigational New Drug Application for a Phase I study of ATA2271, a next-generation autologous CAR T therapy targeting mesothelin, for the treatment of advanced mesothelioma. Mesothelin is a tumor-specific antigen that is commonly expressed at high levels on the cell surface in many aggressive solid tumors including mesothelioma, non-small cell lung cancer, ovarian cancer and pancreatic cancer. Also, in December, the company presented new preclinical data on ATA3271, a next-generation allogeneic mesothelin-targeted CAR T to treat solid tumors. Preclinical findings demonstrate potent antitumor activity, persistence and low toxicity profile.

“We have the most advanced allogeneic cell therapy in the industry,” Touchon said.

He said the partnership with Bayer is a clear recognition of the company’s efforts in developing effective CAR-T programs for solid tumors. The collaboration with Bayer will focus on developing an off-the-shelf T-cell immunotherapy for high mesothelin-expressing tumors. The deal includes two Atara developmental candidates, ATA3271, an armored allogeneic T-cell immunotherapy, and an autologous version, ATA2271, for high mesothelin-expressing tumors such as malignant pleural mesothelioma and non-small-cell lung cancer.

“In 2020, we delivered on expectations,” Touchon said.

In addition to the tab-cel PTLD asset, Atara also has a potentially transformative therapy for multiple sclerosis. The company is developing ATA188, an allogeneic therapy in a Phase Ia study in patients with progressive forms of MS. Touchon said the cell therapy is an exciting way to transform treatment for these patients. With the start of 2021, the company will accelerate the enrollment in the randomized trial.

Not only does Touchon see cell therapies as a key method of killing cancerous cells, he predicted that CAR-T cell therapies can be modified to actually modulate the immune system as potential therapies for autoimmune diseases. Touchon suggested that in the future, cell therapies will be made and administered like a biologic.

“This will be a rich year for data and progress at Atara and it will lead to a successful 2022,” Touchon said.