Virocell and Avencell Join Forces to Advance Off-the-Shelf CAR-T Cell Therapy

Virocell and Avencell Partnered to Elevate Development in Treatments

Announcement

Virocell biologics, a popular vector contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) for cell and gene therapy (CGT) clinical trials, entered a partnership with Avencell Therapeutics Inc., a global clinical-stage therapy company known for advancing allogeneic switchable CAR-T cell therapies. The first-ever retroviral vector will be used in the manufacturing of AVC-203, an investigational CD19/CD20. It is a multi-targeted cell therapy for B-cell treatment of autoimmune and malignant diseases.

Avencell’s Therapy

AV203 is Avencells’ second investigational cell therapy that attempted different allogeneic engineering to enable an ‘off-the-shelf’ product that will compete with graft-versus-host disease, including graft rejection by the natural killer and host T cells. The AVC-203 is introduced to reach its highest efficacy in comparison to the recently approved CAR-Ts while providing real-time treatment and elevated patient access at a reduced cost and complexity. The RevCAR receptor in avencells allows for antigen targeting with 'off/on' potential in vivo, beyond CD20 and CD19.

Avencell found Virocell a suitable partner for manufacturing the retroviral vector for the program, regarding CDMO’s professional expertise and monitor record of serving the increased yield vectors at speed. Avencell’s acquired cell line into the GMP manufacturing process helped Virocell to successfully provide the highest yield vector while matching Avencell’s leveraged timeline. This program witnesses Virocell's capability to serve a critical manufacturing process in the allogeneic CAR-T cell therapy pipeline, almost unlocking Avencell’s timeframe for clinical entry. Avencell’s AVC-203 is predicted to enter a first-ever human phase 1 study in relapsed/refractory B-cell lymphoma in H2Q/2025 patients.

Views and Statements

CEO of Virocell, John W. Hadden 2, said, “We are excited to partner with Avencell and kindly contribute to their innovative allogeneic CAR-T therapy platform. I am proud of the efforts and progress of Virocell’s team on its end-to-end delivery of this retroviral vector and leveraging a therapy into the clinical development in a region of potential unmet need. We are looking forward to continuing our work with Avencell on their amazing platform.”

Phd, CEO of Avencell, Andrew Schiermeier, said, “We are happy with Virocell’s contribution in GMP manufacture and process development of this complicated retroviral vector. We chose Virocell to support our platform due to the trust we have in Virocell to implement reliably in the regions where CDMOs couldn’t have made it up. The sincere delivery retroviral vector for AVC-203 is the proof of our trust in virocell.”