Synergistic Potential of Kleo’s Anti­body Recruiting Molecule (ARM™) and Celularity’s Placental-Derived NK Cells to Be Evaluated in the Context of COVID-19 and Multiple Myeloma

New Haven, CT (Press Release) – Kleo Pharma­ceu­ticals, Inc., a lead­ing com­pany in the field of devel­op­ing next-gener­a­tion, fully syn­thet­ic bispecific com­pounds de­signed to emulate or en­hance the ac­­tiv­ity of bio­log­ics, and Celularity, Inc., a lead­ing de­vel­oper of allo­geneic, or “off-the-shelf”, natural killer (NK) cell ther­a­pies, to­day an­nounced a pre­clin­i­cal re­search col­lab­o­ration to rapidly ad­vance syn­­er­gis­tic com­bi­na­tions of each com­pany’s tech­nology plat­form as poten­tial treat­ments for COVID-19 and mul­ti­ple myeloma.

The col­lab­o­ration comes at an opportune time for both com­pa­nies. Earlier this year, Kleo re­ceived IND authori­za­tion from the U.S. Food and Drug Admin­istra­tion (FDA) to test its CD38-targeting anti­body recruiting mol­e­cule (ARM™) in com­bi­na­tion with au­tol­o­gous NK cells in a clin­i­cal study. In early April, Celularity re­ceived FDA authori­za­tion to eval­u­ate one of its allo­geneic NK cell prod­ucts, CYNK-001, in COVID-19 infected adults. CYNK-001 is the only cryo­pre­served allo­geneic, off-the-shelf Natural Killer (NK) cell ther­apy being devel­oped from placental hema­to­poietic stem cells. It also is being in­ves­ti­gated as a treat­ment for acute myeloid leukemia (AML), mul­ti­ple myeloma (MM), and glio­blas­toma multiforme (GBM).

“We look for­ward to work­ing with Celularity to ad­vance the ARM™ tech­nology plat­form across mul­ti­ple drug pro­grams,” said Doug Manion, MD, CEO of Kleo Pharma­ceu­ticals. “Celularity’s cryo­pre­served allo­geneic NK cells easily com­bine with the ARM™ plat­form, which is ex­pected to facilitate NK cell targeting to­ward can­cer­ous tumors or sites of viral in­fec­tion.” Celularity’s CEO Robert Hariri, MD, PhD added, “We quickly realized the ad­van­tages of Kleo’s syn­thet­ic bifunctional tech­nology, and the syn­­er­gis­tic poten­tial be­tween ARM™ mol­e­cules and our allo­geneic NK cells. The speed and mod­u­lar­ity of the Kleo plat­form allow for the de­vel­op­ment of ARM™-allogeneic NK cell com­bi­na­tion ther­a­pies across a wide variety of in­di­ca­tions.”

When used in com­bi­na­tion with NK cells, ARM™ mol­e­cules behave similarly to chi­meric an­ti­gen re­cep­tors, though their syn­thet­ic nature elim­i­nates the need for ge­netic engi­neer­ing. ARM™ mol­e­cules asso­ci­ate with NK cells via IgG anti­bodies bound to a first moiety, while also con­taining an in­ter­change­able and cus­tom­iz­able sec­ond moiety. Selection of the sec­ond moiety can be used to confer affinity of an ARM™-NK cell complex against a bio­logical target, such as the spike pro­tein of COVID-19 particles or CD38 ex­pressed on the surface of mul­ti­ple myeloma hema­to­logic tumors, ultimately facilitating NK-cell mediated destruction of target cells. This mod­u­lar design allows ARM™ mol­e­cules to be broadly appli­cable across a range of drug pro­grams.

About Kleo Pharma­ceu­ticals, Inc.

Kleo Pharma­ceu­ticals is a unique bio­technol­ogy com­pany devel­op­ing next-gener­a­tion, bispecific com­pounds de­signed to emulate or en­hance the ac­­tiv­ity of bio­log­ics based on the ground­break­ing re­search of its scientific founder Dr. David Spiegel at Yale University. Kleo’s com­pounds are de­signed to direct the immune sys­tem to destroy can­cer­ous or virally infected cells and are cur­rent in de­vel­op­ment for the treat­ment of var­i­ous dis­eases, in­clud­ing mul­ti­ple myeloma and COVID-19. Compared to bio­log­ics, Kleo’s com­pounds are smaller and more versatile, lead­ing to poten­tially im­proved safety and ef­fi­cacy. They are also much faster and more efficient to design and pro­duce, par­tic­u­larly against novel targets. Kleo de­vel­ops drug can­di­dates based on its pro­pri­e­tary tech­nology plat­forms, all of which are mod­u­lar in design and enable rapid gen­er­a­tion of novel immuno­therapies that can be op­ti­mized against specified bio­logical targets and com­bined with existing cell- or anti­body-based ther­a­pies. These in­clude Anti­body Recruiting Molecules (ARMs) and Monoclonal Anti­body Therapy En­hancers (MATEs). Biohaven Pharma­ceu­tical Holding Com­pany (NYSE:BHVN) and PeptiDream Inc. (Nikkei:PPTDF) are in­vestors in Kleo Pharma­ceu­ticals. For more in­for­ma­tion visit http://kleopharmaceuticals.com.

About Celularity

Celularity, headquartered in Warren, N.J., is a clin­i­cal-stage cell thera­peutics com­pany de­livering trans­formative allo­geneic cellular ther­a­pies derived from the postpartum human placenta. Using pro­pri­e­tary tech­nology in com­bi­na­tion with its IMPACT™ plat­form, Celularity is the only com­pany har­nessing the purity and versatility of placental-derived cells to de­vel­op and manu­fac­ture inno­va­tive and highly scalable off-the-shelf treat­ments for patients with cancer, in­flam­ma­tory and age-related dis­eases. To learn more, please visit www.celularity.com.

Forward-Looking State­ments

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Source: Kleo Pharma­ceu­ticals.