Investigator-Initiated Trial to Evaluate CAR T-Cell Therapy

A new investigator-initiated trial in China will investigate KJ-C2219 for the treatment of relapsed or refractory B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma, according to a press release from CARsgen Therapeutics, the developer of the drug.¹

KJ-C2219, an allogeneic CD19/CD20-targeted chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, is designed to treat hematologic malignancies and autoimmune diseases. The drug is developed based on CARsgen’s THANK-u Plus platform, an enhanced version of its THANK-uCAR® allogeneic CAR-T technology. This technology addresses host-versus-graft response by integrating a CAR that recognizes NKG2A, a surface protein of natural killer (NK) cells, into the allogeneic CAR T-cells to hinder the attack of host NK cells.²

Compared with THANK-uCAR®, THANK-u Plus improves CAR T-cell expansion, sustains expression irrespective of varying NKG2A expression levels on NK cells, and achieves superior antitumor efficacy in the presence of NK cells in preclinical studies.¹

“THANK-u Plus has broad potential for developing diverse allogeneic CAR-T therapies,” CARsgen Therapeutics wrote in the press release.¹

References

1. CARsgen announces the initiation of an investigator-initiated trial for an allogeneic CD19/CD20 CAR-T therapy. CARsgen Therapeutics. December 31, 2024. https://www.carsgen.com/en/news/20241231/ Accessed January 3, 2025.
2. CARsgen Therapeutics. Technologies. THANK-uCAR® https://www.carsgen.com/en/our-approach/technologies/ Accessed January 3, 2025.