NEW YORK – OneChain Immunotherapeutics on Thursday said it received nearly €2 million ($2.2 million) from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation to advance a CAR T-cell therapy for T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-cell ALL).
Barcelona, Spain-based OneChain will collaborate with the Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute and the Blood and Tissue Bank on a three-year project to advance the product into a first-in-human clinical study. The CAR T-cell therapy will target two markers on the cancer cell surface.
"By incorporating a second target into our strategy, we not only increase the percentage of patients we could treat — up to 80 percent — but also enhance the effectiveness of the therapy," Victor Diaz, research director at OneChain, said in a statement.
About 100 cases per year of T-cell ALL are diagnosed in Spain, accounting for about 10 percent to 15 percent of acute leukemias in children and 20 percent to 25 percent in adults.
OneChain launched in 2020 as a spinout from the Josep Carreras Institute. In 2022, it began a Phase I clinical trial of a CD1a-targeted autologous CAR T-cell therapy in cortical T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia patients. It is also developing treatments for other hematologic cancers and solid tumors.