CARMA Therapeutics is based on technology from the Center for Cellular Immunotherapies at the University of Pennsylvania, and was spun out of the laboratory of Saar Gill, assistant professor of Hematology Oncology in the Perelman School of Medicine there.
Headquartered in Philadelphia, CARMA Therapeutics is based on technology from the Center for Cellular Immunotherapies at the University of Pennsylvania, and was spun out of the laboratory of Saar Gill, assistant professor of Hematology Oncology in the Perelman School of Medicine there.
The company focuses on cellular immunotherapies, specifically immuno-oncology.
Bruce Peacock, CARMA’s executive chairman, told BioSpace, “It takes the CAR technology, CAR-T cells, the product just approved by Novartis that gives immune cells antibody-like recognition, and instead of focusing on T-cells, focuses on making modified macrophage cells with an initial focus on solid tumors.”
CARMA, then, stands for chimeric antigen receptor macrophages.
“Macrophages can engulf and kill cells through the process of phagocytosis,” says co-founder Michael Klichinsky, in a statement. “By genetically engineering these cells with CARs, we can specifically direct them to tumor cells, such as ovarian cancer cells. Our preclinical data support our hypothesis and show targeted, selective and effective killing of solid tumor cells by CARMA. In addition, we expect the CAR macrophages will prime a T-cell immune response against the tumor.”
Company Leadership
Bruce Peacock – Executive Chairman. Prior to joining CARMA, Peacock was the chief executive officer of The Little Clinic, a medical care services company; president and chief executive officer and director of Adolor; president, chief executive officer, and director of Orthovita; and executive vice president and chief operating officer of Cephalon.
Saar Gill – Co-Founder. Gill is an assistant professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, where he specializes in patients with leukemia and bone marrow transplantation.
Michael Klichinsky – Co-Founder. Klichinsky is a PhD candidate in the Department of Systems Pharmacology and Translational Therapeutics at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. He developed CARMA for his doctoral these under the co-mentorship of Saar Gill and Carl June.
Dora Mitchell – VP, Operations. Mitchell manages the therapeutics and diagnostics portfolio at PCI Venture at the University of Pennsylvania. She also serves on the board of Cytobas, Lignamed, Linnaeus Therapeutics, and Chip Diagnostics.
Margarita Chavez – Lead Investor. Chavez is Managing Director at AbbVie Ventures, and is responsible for AbbVie’s investments in Morphic Therapeutics, Palleon Pharmaceuticals, eFFECTOR Therapeutics and CARMA Therapeutics.
Jacob Gunterberg – Lead Investor. Gunterberg is a partner at HealthCap. Prior to joining HealthCap, he worked with Hjalmarsson & Gunterberg Corporate Finance.
Company Financing
The company was founded with venture funding co-led by AbbVie Ventures and HealthCap, with participation by Grazia Equity and IP Group. Peacock said, “It’s an upstart company, in this case, they, PCI Ventures, through the university, transferred the license in return for an equity share in the company. And we’ve done some incubation financing, which was led by AbbVie Ventures and HealthCap, Grazi and the IP Group. We haven’t disclosed the financing. We went the incubation route and we will go and do a further A round later on. Our focus is going to be, with the incubation round, to get the company’s foundations in place, and to do a Series A round to finance our own programs with the focus on advancing our own programs.”
Pipeline
At this time, the company’s pipeline is completely in the preclinical stage. Peacock pointed out, “The CAR-T therapies that have just been approved, have been primarily focused on blood cancers. The data with CAR-T cells with solid tumors have not been as successful. We think microphages are ideally suited for solid tumors. They live in that tumor environment, and we think giving them this CAR recognition technology offers the promise of treating solid tumors.”
The company plans to look at a variety of cancers in its initial study and select the ones that respond best moving forward. Peacock said, “Ovarian cancer is definitely where we think we’ll go, but we‘ll let the data decide and follow the data.”
They hope to get into the clinic by the second half of 2019.
Market Competition
To date, only two CAR-T therapies have been approved, both in 2017. In late August, Novartis’ Kymriah was approved for B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) that is refractory or in second or later relapse. Gilead Sciences’ Yescarta was approved in late October for relapsed or refractory large B-cell lymphoma, including diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) not otherwise specified, primary mediastinal large B-cell lymphoma (PMBCL), high-grade B-cell lymphoma, and DLBCL arising from follicular lymphoma.
Other companies leading the way in CAR-T include Juno Therapeutics, Celgene, and ZIOPHARM Oncology.
Peacock, however, added, “We’re not aware of anyone else focused on modifying macrophages. There’s a good list of companies focused on CAR-modified T-cells, but we’re not aware of any working on macrophages. There are a variety of approaches to treating solid tumors, and we would compete with some of those, such as checkpoint inhibitors, immuno-oncology, that sort of thing.”
What to Look For
As mentioned above, the company hopes to get into the clinic in the second half of 2019. “In the five-year horizon, it’s possible we have filed and maybe even secured regulatory approval. Again, if you look at the CAR-T cells, they were relatively small trials and the FDA has a pathway to get these treatments approved quicker. It’s hard to say, but it’s possible that in a five-year period we may have filed for approval and in three years we should be in Phase III trials,” Peacock said.
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