Humanigen Signs Agreement With MD Anderson Cancer Center to Begin Research Investigating Lenzilumab as CAR-T Support

Humanigen (OTCQB:HGEN), a biopharmaceutical company pursuing cutting-edge science to develop its proprietary monoclonal antibodies for immunotherapy and oncology treatments, today announced it has signed an agreement with The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center to begin investigator-led research on lenzilumab and its potential to support chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) therapy. Lenzilumab is a first-in-class Humaneered^® recombinant monoclonal antibody that targets and is an antagonist of soluble granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF).

As quoted in the press release:

“With this agreement, we are excited that the team at MD Anderson Cancer Center is beginning to investigate lenzilumab’s potential to make groundbreaking CAR-T therapy safer, better and more routine,” said Cameron Durrant, M.D., chairman and chief executive officer of Humanigen. “CAR-T science has moved quickly in the past few years with the two currently marketed CAR-T therapies having been approved based on single Phase 1/2 studies. We look forward to adding to the burgeoning, cutting-edge science studying lenzilumab as a potential critical CAR-T support therapy.”

The preclinical study will measure the ability of lenzilumab to block patient CD19-CAR-T cells-treatment-derived GM-CSF induction of human leukocyte antigen-DR (HLA-DR) expression on CD14+ monocytes.  It will assess the inhibitory effect of lenzilumab on GM-CSF-induced HLA-DR expression on CD14+ cells, plus other phenotypic and functional monocyte assays.

Click here to read the full press release.