Laurent Poirot, PhD, on the FDA’s IND Clearance for UCART20x22

“UCART20x22 targets 2 antigens at the same time. And that's the first big advantage. CD-19 targeted therapies only target 1 molecule at a time, and many patients relapse due to the tumor losing expression of CD19. When treating with UCART20x22, even if the tumor loses expression of one antigen, the second antigen still can be recognized and used to kill the tumor cells.”

While autologous CD19-directed chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapies have shown great success in the treatment of blood cancers, some patients remain unable to benefit from these treatments, whether due to lack of access, previous weakening of their immune system from prior treatment, or because the CAR-T cells cannot be successfully manufactured from their blood. 

In an interview with CGTLive, Laurent Poirot, PhD, senior vice president, immunology, Cellectis, discussed the company’s dual-targeted investigational CAR-T therapy, UCART20x22. The therapy targets both CD20 and CD22 and is intended to help address unmet needs in patients with B-cell malignancies.¹ UCART20x22 recently received investigational new drug (IND) clearance from the FDA earlier this month, and a phase 1/2a clinical trial is expected to begin enrollment before the end of 2022.

Poirot discussed the implications of the clearance, as well as what he sees as the advantages of UCART20x22’s approach compared to currently available CD19-directed CAR-T therapies. He also discussed the TALEN gene editing technology which UCART20x22 uses and why he believes it will be important in the development of future generations of products.

REFERENCE

Cellectis receives IND clearance for UCART20x22, its first in-house manufactured product candidate for the treatment of B-cell malignancies. News release. Cellectis. August 1, 2022. https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2022/08/01/2489902/0/en/Cellectis-Receives-IND-clearance-for-UCART20x22-its-First-in-house-Manufactured-Product-Candidate-for-the-Treatment-of-B-cell-Malignancies.html