Daily Newsletter

08 January 2024

Daily Newsletter

08 January 2024

Allogene cuts 22% of workforce amid blood cancer therapy pivot

While also announcing a partnership with Foresight Diagnostics, Allogene will focus cema-cel’s use as a first-line consolidation therapy in lymphoma patients.

Robert Barrie January 05 2024

Allogene Therapeutics is discontinuing two of its Phase II trials investigating its ‘off-the-shelf’ cell therapy in advanced large B-cell lymphoma (LBCL) patients, with the company instead focusing on using it as a first-line consolidation therapy.

The CAR-T specialist has already initiated start-up activities for a trial investigating cema-cel’s new focus area, according to a 4 January press release.

While its focus shifts towards the frontline treatment, the company’s Phase II trials investigating cema-cel in patients with advanced LBCL will be deprioritised.

As part of the pivot, Allogene also said it will be cutting 22% of its workforce, as per Reuters’ report on 5 January. Allogene had 361 employees as of February 2023.

The upcoming ALPHA3 trial will enrol around 230 patients who still have cancer cells in their body after R-CHOP, a combo of chemotherapy, steroids and cancer drugs. Although six cycles of R-CHOP are effective, around 30% of patients will relapse.

Allogene said it intends for anti-CD19 therapy cema-cel, formerly known as ALLO-501A, to become the ‘seventh cycle’ of treatment. The trial’s primary endpoint is event-free survival.

To help with identifying patients whose cancer remains following treatment, Allogene has partnered with Foresight Diagnostics to develop a minimal residual test (MRD), as per a 4 January announcement.

The MRD in-vitro diagnostic characterises the number of cancer cells that remain in the patient after treatment using circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) analysis.

The US-based cancer diagnostics company Foresight has a liquid biopsy testing platform for MRD measurement. The technology forms the basis for what will be used in the ALPHA3 trial. Foresight’s investigational PhasED-Seq ctDNA-MRD platform will identify LBCL patients with MRD after first-line consolidation treatment.

Allogene’s co-founder and CEO David Chang said an ultra-sensitive ctDNA-based biomarker is crucial to identify patients that still have a small amount of cancer cells, and for whom cancer will likely recur.

Chang added that the combination of a rapid, blood-base test and Allogene’s ‘off-the-shelf’ therapy will broaden patient access by making enrolment available in places where infrastructure to administer autologous therapies does not exist.

Allogene received rights to 16 pre-clinical chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cell therapy assets from Pfizer, which it in turn had licensed from Cellectis. Allogene was formed with $300m in Series A financing with a contribution from Pfizer, which holds a 25% stake in the company.

AbbVie has also seen the promise of CAR-T. This week, it entered a strategic partnership with Umoja Biopharma in a deal potentially worth up to $1.44bn.

Cell & Gene Therapy coverage on Clinical Trials Arena is supported by Cytiva.

Editorial content is independently produced and follows the highest standards of journalistic integrity. Topic sponsors are not involved in the creation of editorial content.

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