NEW YORK – Mnemo Therapeutics said Monday that it has launched a project with the Hospital-University Research in Health (RHU) program by France's National Research Agency to clinically validate its CAR T-cell therapy approach.
Mnemo's EpCART program focuses on epigenetic reprogramming of CAR T cells to inactivate SUV39H1, an enzyme involved in differentiation of T cells, with the goal of preventing immune cell memory loss and patient relapse. EpCART was one of 17 proposals selected for grant funding from the RHU in December 2021, receiving nearly €10 million ($10.5 million).
The Paris-based firm aims to validate the technology as an autologous therapy over the next five years. To that end, it will collaborate with partners including Institut Curie, MEARY Cell and Gene Therapy Center, and Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris to carry out a Phase I/II clinical trial to evaluate the activity of its CAR T-cell therapies in 35 patients with difficult-to-treat solid tumors.
"Current immuno-oncology therapies often suffer from immune-cell memory loss, causing therapies to become less active and persistent in their ability to attack cancer cells over time," Mnemo Cofounder Sebastian Amigorena said in a statement. "The EpCART project mines insights into the memory of the immune system to overcome this challenge and produce a new class of CAR-T therapies with enhanced memory and persistence. We believe this will drive more durable responses for cancer patients."
Mnemo has developed a platform, called EnfiniT, that identifies epigenetic antigens specific to patients' tumor cells that are then used as targets for CAR T-cell therapies. The firm raised $90 million in series A financing in June 2021 to advance its pipeline of novel CAR T-cell therapies and its technology platform.