EXUMA Biotech Announces Collaboration with Moffitt Cancer Center for the Development of a Rapid-Point-Of-Care SC CAR-T Program

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., Jan. 11, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- EXUMA Biotech Corp., a clinical-stage biotechnology company discovering and developing chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T products and delivery solutions for liquid and solid tumors, announced today that the company has entered into a strategic collaboration with Moffitt Cancer Center to develop EXUMA's first rapid point-of-care, or "rPOC", subcutaneous (SC) product for the treatment of B cell malignancies. EXUMA's first product using rPOC technology targeting CD19 and CD22 has the potential to complete treatment within a six-hour time frame from blood draw to injection, without preparative chemotherapy. Moffitt will provide regulatory support, gene product characterization, and analytical testing to support first-in-human studies.

"For cancer's most vulnerable patients, the time it takes to receive CAR-T is often the first hurdle. We look forward to our new collaboration with Moffitt Cancer Center, and the development of our rPOC CAR-T product. This partnership allows us to accelerate our potential treatment for cancer patients from the lab to the clinic, with our combined teams of internationally renowned scientists," said Sid Kerkar, M.D., Vice President Oncology R&D at EXUMA Biotech.

The collaboration enables EXUMA and Moffitt to further characterize and validate the rPOC technology and qualify analytical testing for product and patient screening to support IND submission. EXUMA will tech transfer its rPOC gene vectors to Moffitt's Cell Therapy Facility. Moffitt will then perform engineering runs using blood from healthy donors and validation runs using blood from lymphoma patients. Moffitt will also participate in FDA meetings with EXUMA, assist with CMC documentation, and perform product characterization.

EXUMA's rPOC Platform
EXUMA's next-generation rapid point-of-care or rPOC platform is being developed for subcutaneous CAR-T administration in a matter of hours following blood draw, with the potential to make same-day autologous CAR-T a reality for cancer patients. The long-term vision is for rPOC to be administered in the community oncology infusion clinic without the need for lymphodepleting chemotherapy or long-term immunosuppression.

About EXUMA Biotech 

EXUMA Biotech Corp. is a private Delaware corporation formed in November 2015 with operations in West Palm Beach, Florida, the Cayman Islands and Shanghai, China. EXUMA leverages its globally integrated science, development and informatics teams located across multiple time zones to accelerate the design, high-throughput screening, discovery and development of chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) candidates for both solid and liquid tumor malignancies. The company is developing logic-gated CAR-T platforms to advance TME-restricted cellular therapies for solid tumors, platforms that will allow for same day, rapid point of care (rPOC) administration for solid or liquid tumors, and highly scalable systems for global therapy deployment, beginning in Asia. Learn more at exumabio.com.

SOURCE EXUMA Biotech Corp.