• 20 Jul 2022
• Admin
• News Article

Antengene Announces Research Collaboration with Celularity to Evaluate the Potential Therapeutic Synergy of Combining Antengenes Best-in-Class Bispecific Antibody with Celularitys Natural Killer Cell Platform

Antengene Corporation Limited a leading innovative, commercial-stage global biopharmaceutical company dedicated to discovering, developing and commercializing first-in-class and/or best-in-class therapeutics in hematology and oncology, today announced that it has entered into a pre-clinical research collaboration with Celularity Inc. (NASDAQ: CELU) (Celularity), a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing placental-derived allogeneic cell therapies. Antengene and Celularity will evaluate the potential therapeutic synergy combining Antengene's bispecific antibody with Celularity's cryopreserved human placental hematopoietic stem cell-derived natural killer (NK) cell therapy platform.Dr. Jay Mei, Antengene's Founder, Chairman and CEO said, "Evaluating new technologies that may have the potential to improve cancer care, either as monotherapy or in synergistic combination with programs, is essential to Antengene's mission. After a careful and comprehensive evaluation, Antengene is very pleased to initiate its first research collaboration in the important field of cellular medicine with Celularity." Dr. Mei continued, "Celularity's proprietary, novel, allogenic, cryopreserved, off-the-shelf placental-derived cellular medicine platform is very exciting to Antengene. We look forward to collaborating with the company to explore the potential synergies from the combination of Antengene's bispecific antibody, and Celularity's investigational NK cell therapy programs, together or in combination with other agents such as antibodies that target tumor associated antigens (TAA). We are hopeful that this collaboration will yield potential new combination therapies that will improve the treatment of patients with hematological and solid tumor cancers." Dr. Bo Shan, Antengene's Chief Scientific Officer said, "We are pleased to partner with Celularity's NK cell platform. The rationale for our collaboration is based on two hypotheses, formed from a foundation of preclinical and clinical research. First, that our bispecific antibody, potentially activating NK cells upon immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) crosslinking in the tumor microenvironment (TME), can synergize with TAA antibodies to enhance the anti-tumor response. Second, that our bispecific antibody may enhance the proliferation of NK cells and increase their persistence in TME." Robert J. Hariri, M.D., Ph.D., founder, Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer of Celularity, added, "We are excited to enter into this research collaboration with Antengene to forge new therapeutic strategies for both solid tumors and hematological malignancies using our placental-derived cell therapy platform. There is an immense potential for combining two novel approaches to enhance tumor targeting while also enhancing allogeneic NK cell activation and activity within the tumor microenvironment. This strategy may identify novel therapeutic options targeting a wide range of cancers." About Antengene Antengene Corporation Limited ("Antengene", SEHK: 6996.HK) is a leading commercial-stage R&D-driven global biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery, development, manufacturing and commercialization of innovative first-in-class/best-in-class therapeutics for the treatment of hematologic malignancies and solid tumors, in realizing its vision of "Treating Patients Beyond Borders". Since 2017, Antengene has a built broad and expanding pipeline of 15 clinical and preclinical assets, of which 10 are global rights assets, and 5 came with rights for Asia Pacific markets including the Greater China region. To date, Antengene has obtained 24 investigational new drug (IND) approvals in the U.S. and Asia, and submitted 6 new drug applications (NDAs) in multiple Asia Pacific markets, with the NDA for XPOVIO