About CAR-T Therapies
Redefining cancer care
The growing field of immuno-oncology has emerged as a breakthrough in cancer treatment, the revolutionary science that harnesses a patient’s own immune system to attack disease. Our mission is to develop next-generation cell and gene therapeutics to treat patients with urgent medical needs, initially with the development of CAR-T product candidates.
Our proprietary gene engineering platform technologies are instrumental in creating potential therapeutics predominantly comprised of a specific T cell subset, stem cell memory T cells, or TSCM, which we believe can address the limitations of early-generation CAR-T therapies, including:
- A safer treatment that drives more gradual tumor killing with less toxicity
- A potentially longer lasting treatment with better duration of response
- The ability to move quickly to clinic
- Cost savings in manufacturing
- Key to success in solid tumors
What is CAR-T?
CAR-T therapy is a form of cell therapy that uses immune cells to attack cancer. The advent of CAR-T therapies has revolutionized treatment of some blood-based cancers by demonstrating profound initial response rates and, in some cases, the ability to cure. Despite these response rates, several key limitations have curtailed broad adoption of early-generation CAR-T products. Limitations include safety concerns and an inability to treat solid-tumor cancers. We believe we can overcome these limitations to create safer and more effective medicines for cancer and potentially other diseases.
Poseida’s Approach to CAR-T Therapies
Dr. Eric Ostertag, Founder, on How Stem Cell Memory T-Cells Can Lower Toxicity in Treating Cancer Patients
Siddiq Abdul-Alim, Ph.D., Describes The Mothership of All T-Cells
Julia Coronella, Ph.D., Recognizes the Impact of piggyBac® on Stem Cells
How is Poseida’s CAR-T approach different?
Our proprietary gene engineering technologies are used to create potential therapies predominantly composed of a specific T cell subset, stem cell memory, or TSCM, which we believe can address the limitations of other CAR-T therapies, including duration of response, the ability to treat solid tumors, and safety concerns. This is possible because Poseida does not rely on viral vectors to manufacture therapies, instead we use our novel non-viral gene engineering technologies that create high TSCM products and have multiple other attributes that result in a potentially safer treatment with equivalent or better outcomes.
Stemness matters
- Strong correlation with best responses in the clinic
- More gradual tumor killing with less toxicity
- Potentially better duration of response and potential for re-response
- Key to CAR-T success in solid tumors
How are CAR-T therapies made?
Poseida is developing allogeneic CAR-T cell therapies, which are created using the cells of a universal donor and produced in large quantities, so they are available for on-demand use. The cells are removed from a healthy donor’s blood and modified in a lab to intensify the immune system’s response to cancer, before being injected into the patient.
About Gene Therapy
Seeking answers for rare genetic diseases
We have gene therapies in development addressing rare and life-threatening diseases, including three liver-directed gene therapy product candidates in orphan genetic diseases – Ornithine Transcarbamylase Deficiency (OTCD), Hemophilia A and Phenylketonuria (PKU). The potential for our science in gene therapy is far reaching, and we are also excited to be researching multiple approaches in a wide array of cell types and tissues for non-liver-directed gene therapies.
Our gene therapy candidates utilize piggyBac in combination with AAV delivery (adeno-associated virus) and our innovative nanoparticle technology to overcome the limitations of traditional gene therapies that rely strictly on viral delivery. PiggyBac’s ability to deliver large capacity genetic cargo and permanently integrate into DNA enables us to extend our technologies into diseases beyond the reach of transient viral-based delivery methods. Our potential to enable durable gene expression, even in tissues with rapidly dividing cells, allows us to pursue a wide spectrum of genetic diseases, including many indications within the pediatric population.
We believe that our approach enables integration of the therapeutic transgene, which will result in long-term stable expression at potentially much lower doses than AAV technology alone, resulting in greater tolerability and a better safety profile for patients. Our eventual goal is to completely replace AAV with our fully non-viral, nanoparticle technology in all applications and rapidly develop safer and more effective gene therapies that address critical unmet needs.
Clinical Trials
P-MUC1C-ALLO1 Allogeneic CAR-T for the Treatment of Solid Tumor Cancers
Poseida is currently enrolling for a Phase 1 clinical trial for P-MUC1C-ALLO1, an allogeneic “off-the-shelf” CAR-T treatment in development for a range of epithelial derived solid tumors, including breast, ovarian, lung, colorectal and other cancers.
P-BCMA-ALLO1 Allogeneic CAR-T for the Treatment of Relapsed/Refractory Multiple Myeloma
Poseida is currently enrolling for a Phase 1 clinical trial for P-BCMA-ALLO1, an allogeneic “off-the-shelf” CAR-T treatment in development for patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma.