TxCell exercises exclusive option to in-license IP rights of academic partner

TxCell — developer of cellular immunotherapies based on regulatory T cells (Tregs) — has exercised its exclusive option to in-license the intellectual property rights of one of its academic partners, the University of British Columbia (UBC), onto its HLA-A2 CAR-Treg programme.

The TX200 programme is expected to soon be tested in humans for the prevention of chronic transplant rejection. The first clinical trial application is anticipated to be actioned in Europe during the early part of 2019.

“TxCell has made considerable progress with UBC on the development of TX200 since the first agreement was signed in 2016. Thanks to the dedication of both partners, in just 18 months we have moved from an initial proof-of-concept laboratory construct to a proprietary clinical-ready candidate. As a result, TxCell is eager to test this program in human as soon as possible,” said Stéphane Boissel, CEO, TxCell. “There is a significant unmet medical need in the prevention of chronic rejection of solid organs post-transplantation. This is partly because there have been to date no other significant medical advances since the current standards of care were developed more than 20 years ago. These standards currently leave transplanted patients with lifelong therapies, often poorly tolerated and which impose a significant burden to patients’ quality of life without guaranteed tolerance to the graft in the long term. Rates of chronic rejection 10 years after transplantation are high across all organs.”

This programme has been under development by both TxCell and UBC since October 2016. TxCell is the licensee and as such will have the exclusive rights to develop and later commercialise TX200.

Terms and conditions of the licence were not disclosed.