▎ WuXi AppTec content team editor
Today, Nkarta Corporation announced that two of its chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) natural killer (NK) cell candidate therapies, NKX101 and NKX019, have yielded positive results in two early clinical trials to treat patient populations with different blood cancers. This is the first time Nkarta has announced the results of clinical trials for its CAR-NK R&D program. Both CAR-NK therapies not only showed good safety, but also allowed more than half of patients who had received multiple pre-treatments to achieve complete remission. This result also demonstrates the broad prospects of ready-to-use NK cell therapy, which has received widespread attention from the industry. Click "Read more" at the end of the article to view the clinical results report PPT.
NKX101 and NKX019 are two allogeneic ready-to-use NK cell therapies. Use peripheral blood NK cells obtained from healthy donors and add CAR using bioengineering. The CAR of NKX101 targets the NKG2D ligand on the surface of the tumor. NKG2D is a key activator of NK cells, and its ligands are overexpressed in cancer cells. The CAR of NKX019 targets CD19 on the surface of the tumor, which is a target that has been clinically validated. In addition to CAR, these candidate therapies also express IL-15 bound to cell membranes for enhanced cell persistence and activity.
▲ Design of NKX101 and NKX019 (Image source: Nkarta official website)
In a clinical trial evaluating NKX101 for the treatment of relapsed/refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), 3 of 5 patients treated with a 3-dose regimen of higher doses of NKX101 achieved complete remission, with two patients meeting the minimum residual lesion (MRD) negative criteria.
▲Clinical trial results of NKX101 (Source: Nkarta official website)
In clinical trials evaluating NKX019 for the treatment of relapsed/refractory B-cell cancer, 3 of 6 patients treated with a 3-dose dosing regimen of higher doses of NKX019 achieved complete remission, including one patient with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and one patient with a kit of cytoma.
▲Clinical trial results of NKX019 (Image source: Nkarta official website)
In both trials, no dose-limiting toxicity was found, and no adverse events similar to the side effects of CAR-T therapy were found.
"We are pleased to see that our CAR-NK, the main candidate therapies NKX101 and NKX109, exhibit excellent monotherapy and exhibit excellent safety profiles in a patient population that has undergone multiple pre-treatments." Mr. Paul J. Hasting, President and CEO of Nkarta, said, "These encouraging data further validate Nkarta's potential 'best-in-class' technology platform. We will continue to combine the safety benefits of NK cells with ready-to-use treatment models to enable more patients to benefit from cell therapy." ”
NK cells have received widespread attention in recent years, not only can it directly kill tumor cells, but also can quickly express a variety of cytokines and chemokines, recruit other immune cells and promote the adaptive immune response of T cells and B cells. At the recently concluded AACR Annual Meeting, Affimed's innate cell artigmatransin binds to NK cells and achieves a 62% complete response rate in early clinical trials. The positive result of Nkarta is another positive development in this field in the past half a month.
Resources:
[1] NKARTA ANNOUNCES POSITIVE PRELIMINARY DOSE FINDING DATA FOR TWO LEAD ENGINEERED NATURAL KILLER CELL PROGRAMS. Retrieved April 25, 2022, from https://ir.nkartatx.com/news-releases/news-release-details/nkarta-announces-positive-preliminary-dose-finding-data-two-lead
[2] Clinical Program Update. Retrieved April 25, 2022, from https://ir.nkartatx.com/static-files/6d097f5f-2f67-4e80-8903-2c96b455b244
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