Precision BioSciences, Tiziana Life Sciences Sign Exclusive License Deal For Foralumab

(RTTNews) - Clinical stage biotechnology companies Precision BioSciences, Inc. (DTIL) and Tiziana Life Sciences plc (TLSA, TILS.L) announced Thursday an exclusive license agreement to evaluate Tiziana's Foralumab, a novel, fully human anti-CD3 monoclonal antibody or mAb, in conjunction with allogeneic CAR T candidates for cancer treatment.

The companies would explore foralumab as an agent to induce tolerance of allogeneic CAR T cells to potentially improve the clinical outcome of CAR T cell therapy.

Under the deal terms, Precision gains an exclusive license to use foralumab as a lymphodepletion agent in conjunction with its allogeneic CAR T therapeutics for the treatment of cancers.

Precision will be responsible for the development, commercialization, and costs for use of foralumab, and Tiziana will receive upfront payment, certain milestone payments, and royalties for foralumab.

The Cluster of Differentiation or CD 3 is a receptor on effector T cells and an anti-CD3 antibody, such as foralumab, has the potential to eliminate or tolerize patient effector T cells.

An anti-CD3 antibody, such as foralumab, might be used to enable the CAR T cells to expand, proliferate, and persist to maximize long term clinical benefits.

Alan List, Chief Medical Officer at Precision BioSciences, said, "We are building out an allogeneic CAR T platform with editing strategies and novel conditioning regimens, such as a lymphodepleting agent like foralumab, for a broad range of hematologic malignancies and solid tumors."

Precision is advancing a pipeline of cell-phenotype optimized allogeneic CAR T therapies.