Celyad Completes Safety Follow-Up of the Second Dose Level of Patients in Its NKR-2 Trial, Enrolls First Patient in the Third Dose Level

Celyad (NASDAQ:CYAD) announced the completion of the 21-day safety follow-up of the last patient enrolled in  the second dose level in the Phase I/IIa clinical trial evaluating the safety and feasibility of its NKR-2 T-cell therapy using T-cells with NKG2D receptor in cancer patients suffering from acute myeloid leukemia (AML) or multiple myeloma (MM).
According to the news:

Existing CAR-T cells are engineered using constructs encoding an antibody single chain variable fragment, the signalling domain of CD3 zeta and one or more co-stimulatory domain(s).  While very favourable outcomes have been presented using CD19 based constructs, current CAR-T target a limited set of cancers.  NKR-2 was generated by fusion of the native human NKG2D receptor gene with the human CD3 zeta cytoplasmic signalling domain and uses the natural co-stimulatory molecule DAP10. This new generation construct allows the targeting of a much broader set of cancers via the recognition of eight well characterized NKG2D ligands, MICA, MICB and ULBP 1-6. Those ligands are expressed on most blood and solid tumors.

Dr. Christian Homsy, CEO of Celyad, said:

The NKR-2 Phase I trial is progressing well. No product related safety issue were reported since the beginning of the trial. We look forward to treating the next patient who will be the first of the third dose cohort.

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