Targeting Hematological Malignancies With Autologous and Allogeneic Cell Therapies

“We want to explore opportunities in the allogeneic field. And of course, that's what I think a lot of companies are currently trying and there's a lot of excitement about it. So how do we move from this autologous treatment to an off the shelf treatment, which obviously would be better in terms of treatment cost and also in terms of time to treatment... we have a very promising early phase development in solid tumors.”

Tessa Therapeutics is targeting both hematological malignancies and solid tumors, with its autologous chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy programs as well as allogeneic virus-specific T-cell therapies. The company recently dosed the first patient with relapsed/refractory classical Hodgkin lymphoma (cHL) in the phase 1b ACTION clinical trial (NCT05352828) of TT11, an autologous CD30-targeted chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapy being developed as a second-line treatment in combination with nivolumab in August 2022. TT11 is also being evaluated as a monotherapy in later lines of treatment for cHL in the phase 2 CHARIOT trial (NCT04268706).

CGTLive spoke with Thomas Willemsen, president and chief executive officer, Tessa Therapeutics, to learn more about the company and its technologies. He discussed Tessa’s current cell therapy programs as well as allogeneic programs for solid tumors in early development. He also touched on upcoming milestones for the company in 2023.

REFERENCE

Tessa Therapeutics doses first patient in phase 1b clinical trial investigating TT11 in combination with nivolumab for t he treatment of relapsed/refractory classical Hodgkin lymphoma (cHL). News release. Tessa Therapeutics. August 17, 2022. https://www.tessacell.com/2022/08/17/tessa-therapeutics-doses-first-patient-in-phase-1b-clinical-trial-investigating-tt11-in-combination-with-nivolumab-for-the-treatment-of-relapsed-refractory-classical-hodgkin-lymphoma-chl/