Hemogenyx Pharmaceuticals plc
(“Hemogenyx Pharmaceuticals” or the “Company”)
Lentivirus Re-manufacturing Completed
Hemogenyx Pharmaceuticals plc (LSE: HEMO), the biopharmaceutical group developing new therapies and treatments for blood diseases, is pleased to announce the successful completion of the re-manufacturing of an improved lentivirus (“LVV”) devoid of splice variants. The LVV is used to programme the Company’s Chimeric Antigen Receptor (“CAR”) T-cells (“HEMO-CAR-T”) for the treatment of acute myeloid leukaemia (“AML”). Spontaneous splicing during the manufacturing of LVV was the only reason for the clinical hold imposed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) on the Investigational New Drug (“IND”) application for the Company’s HEMO-CAR-T product candidate. As agreed with the FDA, before the resubmission of the IND, the Company will perform an additional process qualification run of the end-to-end process for the manufacture of HEMO-CAR-T cells using the new LVV and we will now put this process into effect.
Dr Vladislav Sandler, CEO & Co-Founder of Hemogenyx Pharmaceuticals, commented:
“We are pleased that we have a clear path to the lifting of the clinical hold. We are now working hard to complete the schedule of work set out in the plan presented and agreed to by the FDA and to re-submit the IND as expeditiously as possible to move forward with clinical trials of HEMO-CAR-T.”
About AML and CAR-T Therapy
AML, the most common type of acute leukemia in adults, has poor survival rates (a five-year survival rate of less than 30% in adults) and is currently treated using chemotherapy, rather than the potentially more benign and effective form of therapy being developed by Hemogenyx Pharmaceuticals. The successful development of a new therapy for AML would have a major impact on treatment and survival rates for the disease.
CAR-T therapy is a treatment in which a patient’s own T-cells, a type of immune cell, are modified to recognize and kill the patient’s cancer cells. The procedure involves: isolating T-cells from the patient; modifying the isolated T-cells in a laboratory using a CAR gene construct (which allows the cells to recognize the patient’s cancer); amplifying (growing to large numbers) the newly modified cells; and re-introducing the cells back into the patient.
Market Abuse Regulation (MAR) Disclosure
Certain information contained in this announcement would have been inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of Regulation No 596/2014 (as it forms part of UK domestic law by virtue of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018) until the release of this announcement.
The person responsible for arranging for the release of this announcement on behalf of Hemogenyx Pharmaceuticals plc is Dr Vladislav Sandler, Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder.
Enquiries:
| Hemogenyx Pharmaceuticals plc | https://hemogenyx.com |
| Dr Vladislav Sandler, Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder | headquarters@hemogenyx.com |
| Peter Redmond, Director | peter.redmond@hemogenyx.com |
| SP Angel Corporate Finance LLP | Tel: +44 (0)20 3470 0470 |
| Matthew Johnson, Vadim Alexandre, Adam Cowl | |
| Peterhouse Capital Limited | Tel: +44 (0)20 7469 0930 |
| Lucy Williams, Duncan Vasey, Charles Goodfellow |
About Hemogenyx Pharmaceuticals plc
Hemogenyx Pharmaceuticals is a publicly traded company (LSE: HEMO) headquartered in London, with its US operating subsidiaries, Hemogenyx Pharmaceuticals LLC and Immugenyx LLC, located in New York City at its state-of-the-art research facility.
The Company is a pre-clinical stage biopharmaceutical group developing new medicines and treatments to treat blood and autoimmune disease and to bring the curative power of bone marrow transplantation to a greater number of patients suffering from otherwise incurable life-threatening diseases. Hemogenyx Pharmaceuticals is developing several distinct and complementary product candidates, as well as platform technologies that it uses as engines for novel product development.