Imugene cancer fight bolstered by strategic US partnership

Australian anti-cancer company Imugene has stamped a strategic manufacturing and processing agreement with Kincell Bio, with the latter agreeing to purchase the company’s United States-based facility for US$6 million (AU$9.34 million).

Under the deal, Kincell will cough up the cash in both upfront and milestone-driven payments over three years to acquire Imugene’s North Carolina Current Good Manufacturing Practice (CGMP) facility.

Kincell – a contract development and manufacturing organisation (CDMO) focused on cell therapies – emerged from a 2023 spinout of US biotech company Inceptor Bio. Its mission is to enable early-stage biotech companies to bring their life-changing therapies to patients by providing accessible and high-quality manufacturing services.

The 3000-square-metre state-of-the-art, CGMP-compliant facility is designed with the flexibility to expand in capacity and scope to support the manufacture of cell-based therapies. Kincell intends to evolve the site’s capabilities while leveraging enterprise-wide expertise to manufacture a broad portfolio of autologous and allogeneic products.

Moving forward, both parties have entered into a manufacturing supply agreement whereby Kincell will manufacture Imugene’s “Azer-Cel” therapy to support ongoing clinical trials. Imugene has also agreed to transfer all of its process and analytical development of Azer-Cel to support process and method optimisation for commercial readiness.

The deal will see Imugene save up to US$32 million (A$49.9 million) in cost reductions and allow it to focus on the development of its novel cancer treatments.

We are delighted to have found a strong partner for the development and manufacturing of our CAR T Azer-Cel program. We are confident that this strategic partnership with Kincell will enable Imugene to reach key upcoming data inflection points and extend the company’s cash runway to 2026 Moreover, this partnership allows us to focus on our key capabilities, namely the development of novel cancer treatments.

The company’s unique platform technology seeks to harness and promote the body’s immune system against cancerous tumours. It is part of a current push in the biotechnology world to embrace what is known as “immunotherapy”, where a patient’s own immune system is enhanced and effectively turbocharged to ward off harmful diseases.

Imugene’s product pipeline includes the off-the-shelf cell therapy CAR T drug Azer-Cel therapy, which targets CD19 to attack blood cancer. The CD19 antigen protein is a cancer marker commonly found on the surface of B-cells – a type of white blood cell that plays an important role in clinical oncology.

T-cells are a crucial part of the immune system and can hunt down and destroy abnormal cells, including some cancer cells. However, cancer cells can find ways to evade the immune system, requiring a trigger to retrain a person’s immune system to recognise and attack the cancer cells.

CAR T-cell therapy is designed to train and strengthen the immune system to attack some forms of cancer. It involves collecting a small number of T-cells from the patient’s blood, then re-engineering the cells to carry special structures on their surfaces, which are called chimeric antigen receptors (CARs).

The modified T-cells are added back into the patient as CAR T-cells, with the overall intent being that the re-engineered T-cells will multiply and attack cancer throughout the body. The company describes Azer-Cel as a supercharged T-cell designed to identify and kill malignant cells expressing CD19.

Imugene’s strategic deal with Kincell not only tops the till up to the tune of US$6 million (AU$9.34 million), it also removes the distraction of running a fully-fledged manufacturing facility and allows it to focus on what it does best – saddling up for the fight to beat cancer.

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