“We are thrilled to welcome Dan and Stewart to Optieum’s executive leadership team. Their combined deep expertise in cell and gene therapy product research, development and delivery will be instrumental in advancing our products into clinical trials,” said Shun Nishioka, Optieum’s President and Chief Executive Officer.

Dr. MacLeod is an experienced biotechnology leader and innovator in the cell therapy space with 20 years of experience in immunology, oncology, cancer immunotherapy, gene-editing and virology. Throughout his career, Dan has successfully led numerous teams in translating platform technologies into clinical candidate cell therapies, including four CAR-T therapies that advanced from early-stage research through IND-enabling studies and into Phase 1/2 clinical trials. Prior to joining the Optieum team, Dan was Senior Vice President of Discovery at ImmunoScape, where he led R&D for autologous TCR-T cell therapies. He also held roles of increasing responsibility during his time at Precision BioSciences, leading the discovery and development of gene-edited, allogeneic CAR-T cell therapies. Earlier in his career, Dan held roles at GlaxoSmithKline and the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI).

Dr. Craig is an accomplished biotechnology professional with extensive experience in development, technical operations, quality systems and regulatory affairs for complex biologicals including over 30 years of experience in cell and gene therapy product manufacturing. He has held executive level positions designing, implementing and operating the CMC and GMP manufacturing infrastructure for various pioneering cell and gene therapy companies, including Orchard Therapeutics, Sangamo Therapeutics, Erytech Pharma and Xcyte Therapies. During his career, he has successfully led the development, manufacturing and clinical delivery of recombinant proteins, monoclonal antibodies, gene therapies and cell therapies, including activated T cells and gene-modified T cells.

“With its groundbreaking Eumbody System, Optieum is set to unlock the full therapeutic potential of CAR-T therapies. I’m thrilled to join this mission to bring transformative treatments to patients facing the most challenging diseases,” said Dr. MacLeod, CSO of Optieum Biotechnologies.

“I am honored to join Optieum and be a part of transitioning this innovative CAR-T platform into clinical trials,” said Dr. Craig, CTO of Optieum Biotechnologies.

About Optieum Biotechnologies Inc.

Optieum Biotechnologies Inc. is a cutting-edge biotechnology company dedicated to engineering hope for patients through the development of next-generation CAR-T cell therapies. At the heart of Optieum’s innovation is its proprietary Eumbody System, a revolutionary platform that optimizes CAR constructs to unlock the full therapeutic potential of T cells by dynamically harmonizing CAR binding domains. This transformative platform has the potential to redefine CAR-T cell therapy, enabling the development of groundbreaking treatments for challenging diseases. For more information, visit www.optieumbio.com and follow us on LinkedIn.

Contact:

Optieum Biotechnologies
Email: info@optieumbio.com

The Research License and Option Agreement will aim to generate novel CAR-NK cells with GI CELL’s CAR-NK technology platform and Optieum’s novel scFv antibodies against hematological tumor targets.

Optieum Biotechnologies has a proprietary platform to identify functional scFv/CAR constructs that enhance therapeutic efficacy against the target of interest. Whereas, GI CELL has developed an NKPUREExpander® platform that generates superior NK cells with high efficiency, safety, as well as manufacturability.

Under the terms of the agreement, GI CELL will receive a license option. Upon exercise of the option, Optieum will receive an upfront option exercise fee and milestone payments upon the successful achievement of certain development milestones. In addition, Optieum is eligible to receive royalties on future sales of products that arise from the license.

“We are pleased to enter this collaboration with Optieum Biotechnologies as we continue unlocking the full potential of our NKPURE Expander® platform,” said Dr. Chun Pyo Hong, CEO of GI CELL. “We look forward to evaluating the scFv antibodies from Optieum Biotechnologies’ discovery platform, which have the potential to accelerate the development of our novel CAR-NK cells.”

“We have been dedicated to expanding the toolbox to enable immune cell-based therapies in cancer treatment, through our proprietary Eumbody System. Optieum Biotechnologies’ strength in discovery of functional and improved scFvs in conjunction with GI CELL’s expertise in NK cell engineering and manufacturing may lead to a generation of promising cellular immunotherapy for unmet medical needs,” said Shun Nishioka, CEO of Optieum Biotechnologies.

About GI CELL

GI CELL is a biotechnology company that drives research and development of novel immune cell-based therapies with innovative technologies. Using its proprietary Immune Cell^PURE Expander® platform for highly potent NK and T cell development, GI CELL has integrated its ancillary material screening and cell expansion technologies to streamline the entire cell product development process. The Company is advancing its allogenic NK cell therapies to transform the treatment paradigm for patients with hematological malignancies and solid tumors. GI CELL has multiple NK cell product candidates in IND-enabling and preclinical development.

For more information, please visit https://www.gi-cell.com/en/.

About Optieum Biotechnologies

Optieum Biotechnologies is a biotechnology company with a platform engine to elicit functional and improved scFvs for CAR-T cell and CAR-NK therapies with superior anti-tumor toxicity and persistence. Optieum Biotechnologies’ scFv generation platform, Eumbody System, enables to acquire the scFv from the CAR-T cell’s functionality perspective rather than conventional binding affinity approach. The company is advancing multiple CAR-T cell product candidates targeting hematological malignancies and solid tumors which demonstrate significantly improved anti-tumor toxicity, proliferation capacity and mitigated antigen depletion.

For more information, please visit https://optieumbio.com/

　Optieum has a platform technology to elicit functional and improved scFvs that can lead to superior antitumor reactivity of CAR-T cells. NCC, Exploratory Oncology Research and Clinical Trial Center (NCC-EPOC) has expertise in clinical research and development of cancer immunotherapy, and is capable of accelerating translational research by integrating its clinical resources into this collaboration.

　With the completion of signing, Optieum and Division of Cancer Immunotherapy (Chief, Dr. Tetsuya Nakatsura) of NCC-EPOC, will begin joint research to develop CAR-T cell therapies for patients with solid tumors.

　This grant was submitted with the support of ANRI, a venture capital. With this funding, we will continue to expand our platform technology and accelerate the development of in-house CAR-T cell programs.

　We are committed to go beyond the limits of immuno-oncology drug development and deliver the most appropriate treatment for the cancer patients in needs.

　Optieum Biotechnologies Inc. is a biotechnology company committed to develop innovative scFv antibody-based therapies for the treatment of cancer patients. Our proprietary platform technology, Eumbody System, enables us to develop and detect scFv-based product candidates that specifically bind, modulate, and ultimately enhance the immune-cell function for oncology targets.

　With this funding, we will continue to expand the platform technology and accelerate the collaboration with pharmaceutical companies as well as the development of in-house CAR-T cell programs.

　We are committed to go beyond the limits of immuno-oncology drug development and deliver the most appropriate treatment for the cancer patients in needs.

　Eumbody System is a single-chain antibody generation system yielding CAR-T cells with superior antitumor function developed by Dr. Toshiki Ochi, co-founder of Optieum Biotechnologies, which exclusive license is granted to Optieum Biotechnologies.

　Under the terms of the agreement, Optieum Biotechnologies will receive an undisclosed upfront payment, and is eligible for payments associated with the achievement of certain development milestones.

　We are pleased to announce that co-founder of Optieum Biotechnologies, Dr. Toshiki Ochi’s, paper on “A single-chain antibody generation system yielding CAR-T cells with superior antitumor function” has been published in the Communications Biology and is now accessible online.

Article:  “A single-chain antibody generation system yielding CAR-T cells with superior antitumor function”

Authors: Toshiki Ochi, Masaki Maruta, Kazushi Tanimoto, Fumitake Kondo, Toshihiro Yamamoto, Mie Kurata, Hiroshi Fujiwara, Junya Masumoto, Katsuto Takenaka, Masaki Yasukawa

https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-021-01791-1

プレスリリースはこちら

https://www.ehime-u.ac.jp/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/20200709bioventure.pdf