Kleo Pharmaceuticals and cell therapies developer Celularity recently announced that they signed a joint agreement to combine their technologies to pursue the development of potential multiple myeloma and COVID-19 treatments.
The two companies have selected an ideal time for their collaboration because Kleo recently received the FDA’s IND greenlight for its CD38-targeting antibody recruiting molecule (ARM). The IND will allow it to conduct a clinical study to test the ARM paired with autologous NK cells. The FDA also approved Celularity’s bid to run tests on its allogeneic NK cell properties, mainly CYNK-001 and its impact on coronavirus patients.
“We look forward to working with Celularity to advance the ARM technology platform across multiple drug programs,” stated Kleo Pharmaceuticals CEO Doug Manion.
The Kleo CEO also noted that the collaboration between the two companies is ideal because cryopreserved allogeneic NK cells from Celularity can be combined easily with his company’s ARM platform. This will provide more efficiency when targeting cancerous cells or viral infection sites through NK cell targeting.
Kleo Pharmaceuticals have been investing the ability of NK cell therapy to combat a variety of illnesses such as glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), multiple myeloma (MM), and acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Celularity CEO Robert Hariri also acknowledged that the synthetic bifunctional technology from Kleo will provide significant advantages. He also added that the collaboration between the two companies will provide a great opportunity to tap into the synergies that Celularity’s allogeneic NK cells and Kleo’s platform have to offer.
Hariri believes that the Kleo platform’s modularity and speed will facilitate the development of ARM-allogeneic NK cell-based treatment combinations that will potentially address multiple illnesses. ARM molecules and NK cells behave like chimeric antigen receptors when combined. This approach does not require genetic engineering since they are synthetic.
The combination provides a more effective way of addressing medical conditions. This new approach could be the key to coming up with an effective treatment for the coronavirus and thus the opportune timing. Kleo’s modular design also allows the ARM molecules to be easily applied to a wide variety of drug programs.
