Elicera’s CEO: ”2025 is a crucial year for us”
For Elicera, 2024 resulted in significant clinical progress and strategic initiatives that laid a solid foundation for continued development. The company entered 2025 with high ambitions, with data readouts from multiple clinical studies on the horison. BioStock contacted CEO Jamal el-Mosleh to get his perspective on the past year and what lies ahead.
Elicera Therapeutics specialises in developing cell and gene therapies for cancer treatment. The company is focused on advancing CAR T-cell therapies and oncolytic viruses, aiming to improve and extend the lives of patients with severe cancer. Elicera also utilises its proprietary and commercially available iTANK platform to enhance the efficacy and precision of its therapies.
International presence
Throughout 2024, Elicera achieved several milestones. The year began with a successful capital raise, strengthening the company’s financial position by SEK 27.6 million. To showcase its drug candidates and establish key connections, Elicera also participated in multiple international events. Notably, the company was invited to present at CICON24 (Eighth International Cancer Immunotherapy Conference), one of the world’s largest cancer immunotherapy conferences. During the event, Elicera’s Chief Scientific Officer, Professor Magnus Essand, presented the company’s CAR T program, including the iTANK platform.
Initiation of the CARMA study and clinical progress
In November, the company reached one of the most significant milestones yet, when the first patient was enrolled in the phase I/IIa CARMA study. This study evaluates the safety and efficacy of the CAR T-cell therapy ELC-301 for the treatment of B-cell lymphoma. The study consists of a dose-escalation phase with 12 patients and a dose-expansion phase with an additional 6 patients. ELC-301 is enhanced with Elicera’s iTANK platform, which amplifies immune activation, thereby enabling a broader attack on cancer cells. In January 2025, data revealed a complete response from the first patient, who became tumour-free. More details can be found in an interview here.
Ambitions for 2025
Following a strong 2024, Elicera enters 2025 with its head held high. The company keeps focusing on advancing the CARMA study, presenting structured clinical results from upcoming study cohorts at multiple scientific conferences, and reporting final data from the phase I study of ELC-100. The latter will also support further development plans for the program.
CEO comments
BioStock reached out to CEO Jamal el-Mosleh for his comments on the past year and to get a sense of his expectations for 2025.
Jamal, which achievements in 2024 are you particularly proud of, and how have they impacted the company’s development?
– 2024 has been a successful year for us, and I am proud of several key milestones that we have achieved. First and foremost, we successfully raised capital, ensuring that our financial resources are expected to last until mid-2026. Additionally, we have outstanding warrant programs that, in the best case scenario, could provide an additional two years of funding – extending our financial runway to mid-2028. This gives us a strong financial position to continue developing our promising drug candidates.
– Another major achievement was obtaining approval from the Swedish Medical Products Agency to initiate the CARMA study and enrolling our first patient in 2024. This is a significant milestone for us, as the CARMA program has the potential to offer a curative treatment option for severely ill patients with B-cell lymphoma who do not respond to current standard treatments.
– We have also reached a crucial point in the AdVince study with our oncolytic virus, ELC-100, where we successfully completed patient enrolment in neuroendocrine tumours. We plan to report the final study results in mid-2025 and look forward to analysing the data and its implications for further development. In summary, 2024 has been a year of important regulatory and operational progress while also securing long-term financial stability. This positions us well to continue our work and create value for both patients and shareholders.
You have already made significant progress in the new year. Please elaborate?
– Absolutely, we have had a strong start to the year with two milestones worth highlighting.
– First, in January, we received Orphan Drug Designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for ELC-100 in the treatment of pancreatic neuroendocrine tumours. This is an important regulatory milestone that provides several benefits, including seven years of market exclusivity in the U.S. upon approval, regulatory support, and certain tax incentives. It also signals that regulatory authorities recognise the medical need for this treatment. Our next step is to analyse data from our ongoing dose-escalation study, AdVince, before determining our path forward.
– The second milestone relates to our CARMA study, where we reported a complete response in the first patient treated with our iTANK-enhanced CAR T-cell therapy. A complete response means that no signs of the tumour were detectable upon evaluation, which is, of course, very encouraging. What makes this particularly interesting is that the patient was treated in the lowest dose group, receiving only one-tenth of the planned maximum dose. Furthermore, no severe side effects were observed, which is promising for the continued development of the study.
– At the same time, it is important to emphasise that this is data from a single patient, and it is still too early to draw definitive conclusions about the treatment’s efficacy and safety. We need to collect and analyse much more data before making a more confident assessment. However, it is encouraging that the study has started on a positive note, and we look forward to further evaluating the treatment’s potential.
What does the roadmap for 2025 look like, and what are your expectations?
– 2025 will be a crucial year for us, with several key milestones in our programs.
– For the CARMA study, our primary focus is to identify the optimal dose for treatment with our iTANK-enhanced CAR T-cell therapy, ELC-301. We will treat a total of three patients in the first dosing cohort before proceeding to the next dose level. Our plan is to report structured and aggregated results after each completed dosing group, and we aim to present these data at scientific conferences in 2025 and 2026. The exact reporting timeline will depend on the study’s progress and relevant conference dates.
– Additionally, we look forward to reporting results from the AdVince study in mid-2025, where we will also communicate our strategy for advancing the program. This is a crucial milestone in our efforts to develop a treatment for neuroendocrine tumours.
– We are also actively working to secure non-dilutive funding and partnerships for our two preclinical programs, particularly ELC-401, which we see as a highly promising CAR T-cell candidate for treating glioblastoma (a type of brain tumour). Our goal is to secure resources that will enable us to advance the program into clinical development. In parallel, we are focusing on establishing new collaborations around the iTANK platform, and we anticipate that interest in the platform could increase further if CARMA data continue to show positive results.
– Finally, we look forward to the outcome of our warrant program, which could provide an important financial boost and offer additional flexibility to advance our projects. In summary, 2025 is a crucial year for Elicera, during which we will not only generate and present important clinical data but also strengthen our long-term financial and strategic opportunities. Our team is committed to delivering on all these fronts and maximising value for both patients and shareholders.
The content of BioStock’s news and analyses is independent but the work of BioStock is to a certain degree financed by life science companies. The above article concerns a company from which BioStock has received financing.
