BayPAT entered into an exclusive license agreement with Carina Biotech

15.12.2021

Munich, Germany /Adelaide, Australia, December 15^th, 2021 – BayPAT, service provider offering services in the area of technology transfer, IP management and commercialization, today announced that it has entered into an exclusive license agreement in the field of chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) cells with Carina Biotech. The technology makes use of highly efficient CAR-T cells targeting hard-to-treat cancers and was invented by scientists from the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich (LMU), one of BayPAT’s clients.

Subject to the license agreement are patents covering the CXCR6 technology developed at LMU both expands and complements Carina’s proprietary Multi-functional Chemokine Receptor Platform, enabling and enhancing CAR-T cell homing to certain solid tumour types, resulting in greater CAR-T activity.

Solid cancers are secreting small proteins called chemokines. Each cancer has a specific chemokine secretion ‘profile’, which forms a chemokine concentration gradient around solid cancers.

Certain cancers – such as colorectal, prostate, breast and lung cancers – upregulate a chemokine called CXCL16, which binds to the chemokine receptor CXCR6.

Under the agreement, Carina will develop CAR-T cells that express CXCR6, enabling Carina’s CAR-T cells to migrate along the CXCL16 chemokine gradient to certain cancers, enter the tumours more rapidly and then efficiently kill the cancer cells.

´Carina has a world leading, proprietary platform for the generation of human CAR-T cells to treat cancer. Our precision approach is based on over 30 years of research on T cells and immunity and chemokine and chemokine receptor biology. CAR-T therapy is now an accepted immunotherapy approach for blood cancers. The challenge, which we believe our multi-functional chemokine receptor platform overcomes, is to provide rapid access to solid cancers. We are delighted to have licensed this patent family from BayPAT and the LMU because the CXCR6 technology expands, in a complementary way, the chemokine receptor technology we can access to create next generation cell therapies to treat cancer´, Dr. Deborah Rahtjen, Carina’s Chief Executive Officer said.

“We are very happy, that this highly innovative CXCR6 chemokine receptor technology will be further developed by experts in the area of CAR-T therapies to ensure that the full potential of that technology will be exploited to benefit patients that fight their cancer.” added Dr. Robert Phelps, BayPAT’s Chief Executive Officer.

“CXCR6 is a receptor with unique properties and biology which can confer to therapeutic T cells decisive advantages to enter solid tumor tissue. We could demonstrate the potential utility in combination with CAR T cells as well as its biological function in cancer in two seminal publications in Nature Biomedical Engineering and Cell this year. We are excited to have with Carina Biotech now a dedicated partner, who will translate this technology into clinical trials.” added Prof. Dr. Sebastian Kobold, lead inventor of the CXCR6-technology and Professor at LMU University Hospital.