4basebio Plc Regulatory News (4BB)

4basebio Plc - Joint Development Agreement with Leucid Bio

PR Newswire

London, November 22

23 November 2021

4basebio PLC

("4basebio", the "Company" or the “Group”)

Joint Development Agreement with Leucid Biofor novel CAR T-cell production methods

4basebio PLC (AIM: 4BB), the specialist life sciences group focused on exploiting intellectual property in the field of cell and gene therapies and DNA vaccines, is pleased to announce a Joint Development Agreement (“JDA”) between its wholly owned subsidiary 4basebio Discovery Limited and Leucid Bio Limited, a biotech company pioneering next-generation Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-Cell (“CAR-T”) Therapies for hard-to-treat cancers.

CAR-T therapy is an ex-vivo cell therapy which involves genetically reprogramming a patient’s T-cells to recognise and destroy cancer cells. While current practice relies on integrating viral vectors to deliver the genetic payloads to generate the CAR T-cells, non-viral based approaches, such as MaxCyte’s electroporation technology, are gaining popularity given their scalability, improved safety profile and flexibility in delivering payloads aimed at creating allogeneic, off-the-shelf CAR T-cells.

Under the JDA, the companies will evaluate the use of 4basebio’s Hermes™ non-viral nanoparticle and synthetic hpDNATM technology for enhanced delivery of genetic payloads to generate CART-cells. The successful outcome of this project will pave the way for development of a novel, high-performance and more cost-effective cell engineering method for CAR-T products.

Leucid Bio recently closed a £11.5m Series A financing round to progress its ongoing development of next generation CAR-T therapies. The company’s pCAR technology gives properties to the cells that enable them to consistently outperform previous generations of CAR-T therapies in pre-clinical studies.

Dr Heikki Lanckriet, CEO and CSO for 4basebio, said: “We are very excited to be working with Leucid Bio, a pioneer in next-generation CAR-T therapies, in developing a novel cell engineering approach for CAR-T products.”

Artin Moussavi, CEO of Leucid Bio, said: “We are delighted to be working with 4basebio in developing a safer, more scalable cell engineering process for the generation of allogeneic CAR-T therapies using their innovative HermesTM non-viral delivery platform.”

For further enquiries, please contact:

4basebio PLC +44 (0)12 2396 7943Heikki Lanckriet

Nominated Adviser +44 (0)20 7213 0880Cairn Financial Advisers LLPJo Tuner / Sandy Jamieson

Broker +44 (0)20 7220 0500finnCap LtdGeoff Nash/Richard Chambers/Charlotte Sutcliffe

Notes to Editors

About 4basebio

4basebio (AIM: 4BB) is a specialist life sciences group focused on therapeutic DNA for cell and gene therapies and DNA vaccines and providing solutions for effective and safe delivery of these DNA based products to patients. It is the intention of the Company to become a market leader in the manufacture and supply of high purity, synthetic DNA for research, therapeutic and pharmacological use and develop non-viral vectors for the efficient delivery of payloads. The immediate objectives of 4bb are to validate and scale its DNA synthesis and advance its collaborations to facilitate the functional validation of its DNA based products and cell and gene delivery solutions.

About Leucid Bio

Leucid Bio is a pioneering biotech company developing cell therapies for refractory cancers, especially solid tumours. Leucid was founded to translate 20 years of King's College London (King’s) research in the CAR-T field and is led by a highly experienced management team with both scientific and commercial expertise. As part of Leucid’s ongoing relationship with King’s, it benefits from exclusive access to and resources from the deep scientific, clinical and manufacturing expertise of Dr Maher and his academic team of immuno-oncology experts.

Leucid is headquartered in London, UK, with operations based at Guy’s Hospital with its own GMP manufacturing and clinical lab facilities, enabling it to maintain its patient-centric focus on developing better cell therapies for the benefit of individuals with hard-to-treat solid tumours. 

Forward-looking statements

This announcement may contain certain statements about the future outlook for the 4basebio. Although the directors believe their expectations are based on reasonable assumptions, any statements about future outlook may be influenced by factors that could cause actual outcomes and results to be materially different.