BioAtla and F1 Oncology Announce Global Collaboration to Develop Adoptive Cellular Therapies for Solid Tumors
January 06, 2017 at 06:00 am
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BioAtla, LLC and F1 Oncology Inc. announced a global license agreement to combine BioAtla's CAB technology with F1 Oncology's proprietary technologies to develop and commercialize chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapies and other ACTs for the treatment of cancer. F1 Oncology recently completed a $37 million Series A financing led by F1 BioVentures LLC, Sinobioway Group, and SunTerra Capital. Through its international affiliates, F1 Oncology also entered into a development and commercialization agreement with Shanghai SunTerra Biotechnology Ltd. and its network of academic investigators to enable clinical investigation of CAB CAR-T candidates in China. F1 Oncology's partners intend to begin clinical trials in China in 2017 targeting a solid tumor indication using F1's first CAB CAR-T therapy candidate. The financial terms of this agreement include technical and regulatory milestone-based equity investments of up to $50 million through 2018, as well as supply-related payments by target and indication. F1 Oncology retains rights to all products outside China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. BioAtla and F1 Oncology have identified CAR-T and other ACT therapies as potential opportunities for the application of CAB technology. BioAtla has demonstrated in preclinical studies that CAB antibodies can be constructed in the same single chain format used by CAR-Ts and can retain their selectivity for binding under conditions representative of the tumor microenvironment (TME) and with minimal to no detectable binding in normal cell conditions. CARs are constructs that contain an antigen–binding domain of an antibody fused to a strong T-cell activator domain. T-cells modified with the CAR construct can bind to the antigen and be stimulated to attack the bound cells. On-target, off-tumor toxicity has largely limited current CAR-T therapies to target blood cancers such as leukemia and some lymphomas. While CAR-T related toxicities are multifactorial and complex, CAR-T cells containing CAB CAR domains targeting solid tumor antigens would be intended to reduce on-target, off-tumor toxicity and potentially increase patient safety.
BioAtla, Inc. is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing antibody-based therapeutics for the treatment of solid tumor cancer. The Companyâs product candidates include Mecbotamab vedotin (BA3011), Ozuriftabmab vedotin (BA3021), BA3071, and BA3182. Its lead product candidate, BA3011, is a conditionally active biologics (CAB) antibody-drug conjugates (ADC) that targets AXL, which is a protein kinase receptor. The BA3071 is a potential therapeutic for multiple solid tumor types, including soft tissue and bone sarcoma, and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). BA3021 is developing a CAB antibody drug conjugate directed against a receptor tyrosine kinase such as orphan receptor 2 (ROR2). BA3071 is a CAB anti-CTLA-4 antibody that is being developed as a therapeutic for multiple solid tumor indications. BA3182 is designed with an EpCAM binding domain and a CD3 binding domain, both binding domains with CAB activity (Dual-CAB), for the treatment of advanced adenocarcinoma.
BIOATLA, INC. 
