Antion Biosciences Launches Novel Cell and Gene-engineering Platform, miCARTM

Antion Biosciences Launches Novel Cell and Gene-engineering Platform, miCAR^TM

-          Company’s allogeneic miCAR™ T-cells have the potential to cure diseases with significant unmet need

• Novel multiplex cell engineering platform to simultaneously silence and express multiple therapeutic proteins in a single transgene

Geneva, Switzerland, 18 March 2021 - Antion Biosciences (‘Antion’ or ‘the Company’), a Swiss cell and gene engineering company developing highly innovative allogeneic therapies to cure diseases with significant unmet medical need, today launches its proprietary allogeneic miCAR^™ T-cell technology platform (“miCAR”).  miCAR has the ability to both silence and express therapeutic proteins in a single step which simplifies the development and manufacture of these life-changing and curative therapies.

Gene and cell therapy innovation is advancing rapidly and already producing effective commercial therapies. These include autologous CAR T-cell therapies, whereby a patient’s own cells are extracted, genetically modified and reintroduced to treat the patient, and this process can be costly and time-consuming. Antion’s miCAR has the potential to provide an allogeneic or “off the shelf” treatment option for patients which removes the need for harvesting of the patient’s own cells and lengthy manufacturing steps, surpassing the significant challenges that arise with current autologous therapies. Some of the additional benefits of the technology include:

• Simultaneous multi-gene silencing
• Improved patient safety
• Improved efficacy and persistence
• Multimodal mechanism of action
• Immune-camouflaging
• Ability to re-dose
• Scalable manufacturing
• Real world applicability
• Single transduction step

The Company’s ground-breaking miCAR construct is underpinned by its proprietary Therapeutic MiniGene™ (TMG) technology. Antion has developed a synthetic microRNA construct, TMG, which has the ability to accurately silence multiple target genes simultaneously. TMG is used to form a proprietary bimodal gene construct with a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR), called miCAR. From this, Antion has created allogeneic miCAR T-cells with the ability to simultaneously silence multiple genes and express therapeutic proteins in a single manufacturing step, allowing for uniform multiplex gene silencing and CAR expression across all gene-modified T-cells. Antion’s allogeneic miCAR T-cells are specifically designed to overcome the immunosuppressive tumour microenvironment, achieving increased persistence, improved safety and potentially greater levels of long-term efficacy, affording them high applicability in the real world.

Antion’s primary therapeutic focus is oncology with the lead target, multiple myeloma. Future targets will include haematological malignancies and solid tumours. In addition to the primary therapeutic focus, using the miCAR technology, Antion is also targeting infectious diseases, including HIV infection and COVID-19, as well sensory disorders, including an inner ear gene therapy.

Antion was founded in 2016 from the University of Geneva in a technology partnership with University of Zurich and University of Pretoria, and the Company is led by Dr. Sven Kili, CEO, previously Head of Gene and Cell Therapy at GSK and prior to that Genzyme. Alongside Sven is a world class leadership team which is supported by an internationally recognised team of scientists and clinicians.

Commenting on the launch, Dr. Sven Kili, Chief Executive Officer of Antion Biosciences, said: “The cell and gene therapy environment is maturing fast and we’ve seen numerous drug approvals over the last few years that have changed the treatment paradigm for patients all over the world. Our miCAR technology builds on the existing work carried out on autologous CAR T-cell therapies and provides patients a much-needed, allogeneic therapy option which will make a positive difference to safety, efficacy and the ease with which patients are treated. I’m extremely excited to be leading the Antion team as we begin progressing our miCAR T-cell therapy for multiple myeloma, as well as other indications, to the next development stages.”