Elicera Therapeutics develops cell and gene therapies based on CAR T cells and oncolytic viruses. To demonstrate the potential of the technology and increase demand, the company is running two of its own CAR T-based drug projects (ELC-301 and ELC-401), both of which are in the preparatory phase for clinical trials. The other two candidates are oncolytic viruses (ELC-201 and ELC-100).
The company's driving force is its proprietary platform technology. iTANK (immunotherapies Activated with NAP for efficient Killing) which arms CAR T cells to activate a parallel immune response against cancer in conjunction with CAR T cell therapies and enable, above all, the treatment of solid tumors.
Powerful effect against the majority of all cancers
iTANK can be used in both completely new CAR T treatments and to improve existing CAR T cell therapies against aggressive and recurrent cancers.
Elicera's preclinical results indicate that iTANK-enhanced CAR T-cell therapies have a powerful effect against difficult-to-treat solid tumors, which constitute the majority of all cancers. The technology is particularly promising in the preclinical phase, where over 400 projects are currently active, increasing the theoretical possibilities of securing licensing agreements with potential resource-rich partners.
“Overall, we see strong reasons – and high potential – to use iTANK technology to arm both our own and others’ CAR T therapies and pave the way for effective treatment of solid tumors.” – Jamal El-Mosleh
Comments from the CEO
Elicera published the third quarter report on November 14th and BioStock turned to the company's CEO and co-founder, Jamal El-Mosleh for a comment.
Jamal, you expect to be able to treat the first patient in your clinical phase I/II trial CARMA with ELC-301 early next year. What will you be able to communicate from this trial during the first interim report in 2025?
– Patients who respond to CAR T therapy typically do so within one month of starting treatment. During the first interim report in 2025, we therefore expect to be able to report tumor response data for the first 12 treated patients in the dose escalation part of the study, in addition to being able to report on any serious adverse events.
How do the recent extensions of patent protection for iTANK affect your negotiating position in out-licensing discussions and your business development opportunities in general?
– We have now approved patent protection in both Europe and China, which are two of our key markets for iTANK. This naturally strengthens our business development opportunities.
Glioblastoma is a notoriously difficult-to-treat brain cancer, not least because of the difficult-to-penetrate blood-brain barrier. Why did you choose this indication for your iTANK-boosted CAR T-cell therapy ELC-401?
– Patients with glioblastoma have no curative treatment options and are in great need of new effective therapies. The target we use in ELC-401 is confirmed to be overexpressed in glioblastoma and there are also competing companies that have treated patients with their own CAR T therapies against the same target. Among other things, complete tumor response has been reported in individual patients. In these cases, however, the patient has quickly relapsed with metastases that can no longer be treated with CAR T therapy.
– The reason is that glioblastoma has a very heterogeneous expression of potential antigen targets, which means that some tumor cells lack the CAR T target and thus escape attack and can form CAR T-resistant tumors. Thanks to the fact that we have armed ELC-401 with the iTANK technology, we expect to be able to activate an immune response against several different targets on the tumor cells and not only against the CAR T target.
– Regarding the problem of a difficult-to-penetrate blood-brain barrier, we are currently investigating the most optimal method of administration in preclinical studies. We always have the option of also administering our CAR T therapy locally in conjunction with standard treatment (surgery).
Finally, how do you plan to differentiate yourself in the market and attract potential partners for iTANK out-licensing?
– The iTANK technology is what primarily differentiates us in the CAR T-cell market. We are approaching other CAR T developers who are primarily active in the area of solid tumors as we see that our iTANK technology can solve two of the biggest problems all CAR T developers face in treating solid tumors:
- Heterogeneous target antigen expression: In preclinical studies, we have been able to show that iTANK can trigger a parallel immune response against cancer by activating its own killer T cells against multiple targets on solid tumors. In this way, cancer cells that lack the CAR T target can also be attacked.
- Immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment: iTANK has been shown in preclinical studies to be able to convert an immunologically “cold” tumor into an immunologically “hot” tumor and counteract the otherwise immunosuppressive microenvironment in solid tumors. Data from mouse studies, published in Nature Biomedical Engineering, also show significantly greater intratumoral infiltration of iTANK-armed CAR T cells compared to unarmed “conventional” CAR T cell therapies.
– Overall, we see strong reasons – and high potential – to use iTANK technology to arm both our own and others' CAR T therapies and pave the way for effective treatment of solid tumors.