Affini‑T Therapeutics & Metagenomi Announce Next-Generation Gene Editing Partnership to Advance Cell Therapies for Solid Tumor Patients

Affini‑T Ther­a­peu­tics, Inc., a biotech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny unlock­ing the pow­er of T cells against onco­genic dri­ver muta­tions, and Metageno­mi, Inc., a genet­ic med­i­cines com­pa­ny with a ver­sa­tile port­fo­lio of next-gen­er­a­tion, whol­ly-owned gene edit­ing tools, today announced a part­ner­ship to enable Affini‑T’s next gen­er­a­tion ex vivo T cell recep­tor (TCR) cell ther­a­pies for sol­id tumor patients using Metagenomi’s nov­el pro­pri­etary gene edit­ing systems.

“We are delight­ed to announce our part­ner­ship with Metageno­mi and to apply their next-gen­er­a­tion gene edit­ing sys­tems to our cell ther­a­pies tar­get­ing onco­genic and viral dri­ver genes, includ­ing KRAS and p53, to pro­vide the great­est impact for patients across a vari­ety of hard-to-treat sol­id tumor types,” said Jak Knowles, M.D., Co-founder, Pres­i­dent and Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer, Affini‑T Ther­a­peu­tics. ​“By work­ing with Metageno­mi, we will gain access to pow­er­ful, nov­el gene edit­ing tools to make pre­cise and mul­ti­plex edits to immune cells, there­by opti­miz­ing the effec­tor func­tion of our cell-based therapeutics.”

“With this col­lab­o­ra­tion, Metageno­mi is exe­cut­ing on its ex vivo ther­a­peu­tics part­ner­ing strat­e­gy in the immuno-oncol­o­gy space. We are espe­cial­ly excit­ed to part­ner with the out­stand­ing team at Affini‑T and its sci­en­tif­ic founder Dr. Phil Green­berg, who has fun­da­men­tal­ly advanced this field. We believe that cell ther­a­py, com­bined with our pow­er­ful gene edit­ing tools, is the future of immuno-oncol­o­gy, treat­ing patients with the high­est unmet med­ical need,” said Bri­an C. Thomas, Ph.D., Founder and Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer of Metageno­mi. ​“Our strat­e­gy in cell ther­a­py strives to cre­ate a broad pipeline of licensed, part­nered and in-house devel­op­ment pro­grams with lead­ing sci­en­tif­ic teams.”

The part­ner­ship will lever­age Metagenomi’s pro­pri­etary gene edit­ing sys­tems to com­ple­ment Affini‑T’s state-of-the-art TCR dis­cov­ery and syn­thet­ic biol­o­gy plat­forms to gen­er­ate ground­break­ing cell ther­a­py prod­ucts. Affini‑T will have the option to exclu­sive­ly license Metagenomi’s tech­nol­o­gy to make gene edits in autol­o­gous TCR T cell ther­a­pies for spe­cif­ic tumor tar­gets, with the option to expand non-exclu­sive­ly to edit­ing cer­tain allo­gene­ic approach­es. In the future the par­ties will dis­cuss fur­ther tar­gets for co-devel­op­ment and co-commercialization.

Under the terms of the agree­ment, Metageno­mi will be enti­tled to receive tiered pay­ments for each optioned can­cer tar­get plus addi­tion­al mile­stone and roy­al­ty payments.

About Metageno­mi

Metageno­mi is a gene edit­ing com­pa­ny com­mit­ted to devel­op­ing poten­tial­ly cura­tive ther­a­peu­tics by lever­ag­ing a pro­pri­etary tool­box of next-gen­er­a­tion gene edit­ing sys­tems to accu­rate­ly edit DNA where cur­rent tech­nolo­gies can­not. Our metage­nomics-pow­ered dis­cov­ery plat­form and ana­lyt­i­cal exper­tise reveal nov­el cel­lu­lar machin­ery sourced from oth­er­wise unknown organ­isms. We adapt and forge these nat­u­ral­ly evolved sys­tems into pow­er­ful gene

edit­ing sys­tems that are ultra-small, extreme­ly effi­cient, high­ly spe­cif­ic and have a decreased risk of immune response. These sys­tems fuel our pipeline of nov­el med­i­cines and can be lever­aged by part­ners. Our goal is to rev­o­lu­tion­ize gene edit­ing for the ben­e­fit of patients around the world. For more infor­ma­tion, please vis­it https://​metageno​mi​.co/.

About Affini‑T Therapeutics

Affini‑T is unlock­ing the pow­er of T cells and tar­get­ing core onco­genic dri­vers to devel­op poten­tial­ly cura­tive ther­a­pies for sol­id tumor can­cers. Our dif­fer­en­ti­at­ed cell ther­a­py plat­form har­ness­es state-of-the-art engi­neer­ing and syn­thet­ic biol­o­gy capa­bil­i­ties to tar­get even the most dev­as­tat­ing can­cer-dri­ving muta­tions, begin­ning with KRAS. We lever­age these tools to opti­mize T cell func­tions and rewrite the rules of the sol­id tumor microen­vi­ron­ment, enabling the poten­tial for sus­tained clin­i­cal out­comes in patients. Build­ing on the world-class inno­va­tion inher­ent in our lead­er­ship team, founders and tech­nolo­gies, we are pow­ered to devel­op trans­for­ma­tion­al med­i­cines that last. Fol­low us on LinkedIn and Twit­ter.

Contacts

Media Con­tacts
Danielle Cantey
Evoke Canale
Danielle.​Cantey@​evokegroup.​com
619−826−4657

Ian Stone
Evoke Canale
Ian.​Stone@​evokegroup.​com
619−849−5388

Investor Con­tact
IR@​affinittx.​com

Metageno­mi Contacts

Investor
Simon Harnest
CIO, SVP Strat­e­gy
simon@​metagenomi.​co
(917) 403‑1051

Media
Ash­lye Hodge
Sr. Mar­ket­ing and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Spe­cial­ist
ashlye@​metagenomi.​co
(510) 734‑4409