IN8bio’s ‘off-the-shelf’ gamma delta T cells stave off relapse for high-risk leukemia patients in very early data cut

With eyes set on the fu­ture of cell ther­a­py, re­searchers are look­ing to lever­age a grow­ing menagerie of im­mune cells to en­gi­neer a bet­ter gen­er­a­tion of tu­mor fight­ers. One type show­ing ear­ly promise is gam­ma delta T cells, and now an­oth­er biotech in that space is trot­ting out promis­ing — if lim­it­ed — re­sults.

Three acute myeloid leukemia pa­tients dosed with IN8bio’s off-the-shelf gam­ma delta T cells re­mained in re­mis­sion af­ter a stem cell trans­plant as long as 20 months af­ter re­ceiv­ing their cells, of­fer­ing an ear­ly vote of con­fi­dence for the small biotech’s ap­proach, the com­pa­ny said Thurs­day.

The three pa­tients were still in re­mis­sion at 20 months, 18 months and around six months af­ter dos­ing, IN8bio said. About 50% of pa­tients with post-trans­plant, high-risk AML re­lapse with­in the first year, the com­pa­ny said in a re­lease.

Gam­ma delta T cells are the lat­est in drug de­vel­op­ers’ ef­forts to en­gi­neer mem­bers of the in­nate im­mune sys­tem to fight stub­born can­cers with­out the oner­ous safe­ty pro­file of cur­rent-gen­er­a­tion T cell ther­a­pies. Off-the-shelf, or al­lo­gene­ic, ther­a­pies are en­gi­neered from donor cells rather than au­tol­o­gous ther­a­pies, which are de­rived from a pa­tient’s own.

Be­cause this pro­gram, dubbed INB-100, re­lies on donor cells, IN8bio is keep­ing a close eye on graft-ver­sus-host dis­ease, and the ear­ly re­sults look promis­ing. There were no treat­ment-re­lat­ed Grade 3 events or high­er, in­clud­ing se­ri­ous cas­es of GVHD 100 days af­ter in­fu­sion, and no cy­tokine re­lease syn­drome or neu­ro­tox­i­c­i­ty events were re­port­ed.

Gam­ma delta T cells, rare cells that bridge the gap in func­tion be­tween the in­nate and adap­tive im­mune sys­tem, have earned re­searchers’ in­ter­est due to their reg­u­la­to­ry and can­cer-fight­ing prop­er­ties as well as a lack of al­pha and be­ta T cell re­cep­tors, which dri­ve GVHD, po­ten­tial­ly crack­ing open more promise as al­lo­gene­ic ther­a­pies. Promis­ing da­ta cuts like these have on­ly helped dri­ve even more in­vest­ment in­to this space.

Ear­li­er this month, Adicet, an­oth­er play­er here, rolled out ear­ly da­ta show­ing its own off-the-shelf can­di­date AD-001 post­ed two com­plete re­spons­es across four pa­tients in an ear­ly Phase I study test­ing the drug in pa­tients with heav­i­ly pre­treat­ed B cell non-Hodgkin’s lym­phoma. Adicet en­gi­neered AD-001 with a CD20-tar­get­ing chimeric anti­gen re­cep­tor (CAR) on­to donor cells.

At a low dose of 30 mil­lion cells, one pa­tient post­ed a com­plete re­sponse with an­oth­er see­ing a par­tial re­sponse, which Adicet de­scribed as a ‘near CR.’ A third evalu­able pa­tient pro­gressed and two oth­er pa­tients in the low-dose arm of the study dropped out be­fore the 28-day mark.

Un­like IN8bio, which ge­net­i­cal­ly mod­i­fies donors’ cells to be re­sis­tant to chemother­a­py, Adicet doesn’t ge­net­i­cal­ly en­gi­neer, cut­ting away the po­ten­tial for un­want­ed mu­ta­ge­n­e­sis, which may have side­lined al­lo cell ther­a­py play­er Al­lo­gene’s lead pro­gram ear­li­er this year.

Ace­po­dia, mean­while, has plans to file an IND for its own CD20-tar­get­ing CAR gam­ma delta T cell lat­er this month. And in Oc­to­ber, Take­da ac­quired Gam­maDelta Ther­a­peu­tics, which is de­vel­op­ing what it calls al­lo­gene­ic vari­able delta 1 (VD1) gam­ma delta T cells that en­tered the clin­ic this sum­mer.

Sensor-based technology for clinical trial data collection represents the latest medical paradigm shift. There are more than 700 clinical studies involving wearable devices currently underway in the United States. A study from Intel IT projects their inclusion in clinical trials will surge to 70% by 2025.

Apps, biosensors and patient-centered technologies increase visibility of comprehensive patient data. Pharma leaders anticipate the benefits of wearables to include better data (58%), faster results (33%) and lower trial costs (10%).

Richard Pazdur (via AACR)

There’s no denying that Merck’s Keytruda set a high bar for checkpoint inhibitors in development everywhere. But when it comes to the often redundant development of PD(L)-1 antibodies worldwide, FDA’s top cancer doctors Rick Pazdur and Julia Beaver are calling for more industry coordination.

‘Efforts to corral this enthusiasm should focus on increased international partnerships between sponsors of approved checkpoint inhibitors and those developing novel agents to be used with anti–PD-1 and anti–PD-L1 antibodies rather than developing ‘me too’ drugs,’ Beaver and Pazdur wrote Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

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Crowd gathering at the Westin St. Francis for JPM in 2019 (Endpoints News)

Well, see you in January 2023.

In a surprise about-face, #JPM22 will now be fully virtual after organizers of the popular biotech conference decided to pull the plug on a live event in San Francisco given fears over the Omicron variant and a growing chorus of drugmakers opting out.

The move is no big surprise after reports swirled about some of the industry’s biggest players nixing plans to attend live and pressuring the bank to reconsider the annual meet at the Westin St. Francis. STAT reported Tuesday that Moderna and Amgen, among other large drugmakers, had already pulled out.

The FDA on Wednesday not only approved the first generic versions of the decades-old diabetes insipidus treatment vasopressin, but also simultaneously offered a particularly damning rebuke of a citizen petition attempting to block the generic, while promising to pass along the matter to the Federal Trade Commission.

The response could prove troublesome for the sponsor of the brand name version of the drug, Endo’s Par Sterile Products, which brought in more than $780 million in 2020 for its brand name version of the drug Vasostrict.

Eli Lilly, Gilead, Thermo Fisher and other industry groups and nonprofits like BIO and USP are seeking some slight changes and more clarity from the International Council of Harmonisation on its new guidance related to continuous manufacturing.

The guidance, known as Q13, focuses on continuous manufacturing and its potential to lower manufacturing costs and reduce the physical footprint of manufacturing facilities compared to traditional batch manufacturing, according to USP. Continuous manufacturing also may improve quality control, lower the variability in manufactured products, and provide enhanced flexibility in production quantity and utilization of manufacturing lines.

Jay Bradner, President, Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research

John Carroll: Well, hello everybody. This is John Carroll. I’m the editor of Endpoints News, the editor and founder of Endpoints News. I’m here with Jay Bradner, the president of the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research. Jay, we’re going to be talking about ASH in just a second, but you’ve just recently celebrated your sixth anniversary as president of NIBR. And I’m curious, it’s such a significant amount of time for anybody to spend in one career phase. And looking back over the last six years, is everything fundamentally different about the research process and the translational arena that you’re in?

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For the first time, Biogen released details Thursday on how it intends to prove that its by turns celebrated and maligned drug Aduhelm can actually slow the decline of patients with Alzheimer’s, as required by the FDA.

The biotech said it will launch a global 1,300-person trial next May that will randomize early-stage Alzheimer’s patients to receive either Aduhelm or placebo. It will probably take about four years for the trial to generate results, the company said, pushing a final answer to 2026.

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Robert Califf (Graeme Sloan/Sipa via AP Images)

As Rob Califf likely makes his return as FDA commissioner next month, his confirmation hearing yesterday offered a peek into some of the larger obstacles he’s going to face in the coming months and years.

The pandemic isn’t going away anytime soon with Omicron, and some vaccines and therapeutics may need to be tweaked or pulled from the market entirely as they prove to be ineffective against the new variant. The FDA, meanwhile, needs to get back on even footing with some longer-term direction.

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A nurse administers a COVID-19 booster shot to Joe Rigdon at a vaccination site in Eastmonte Park, Altamonte Springs. (Photo by Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

When Laura Burns went to get her first Covid-19 shot last January, no one had warned her that the vaccines might not work for her.

Burns, the recipient of a double-lung transplant in 2016, knew to be careful about the medicines she took. She consulted with her transplant team when the Pfizer and Moderna shots were authorized and only signed up after being told the vaccines would likely be safe for her, which they were.

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