Fate Therapeutics said today it has won a $4 million California Institute for Regenerative Medicine grant toward advancing one of its off-the-shelf engineered natural killer (NK) cell cancer immunotherapies into a first-in-human clinical trial. FT516 is derived from a clonal master induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) line engineered to uniformly express a novel CD16 Fc receptor that has been modified to enhance its binding affinity to Immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibodies and prevent the receptor’s shedding from the surface of NK cells upon activation, which can otherwise diminish the cells’ anti-tumor activity. In preclinical studies, FT516 has shown potent and persistent anti-tumor activity in vitro and in vivo in multiple tumor cell recognition and killing assays, including in combination with various IgG antibodies, Fate Therapeutics said. Fate Therapeutics said it plans to develop FT516 as a treatment for multiple types of tumors, both alone and in combination ...
Original Article: Fate Therapeutics Wins $4M Grant to Advance NK Cancer Immunotherapy