The Estrella Approach
53%
5-year overall survival (OS)
Patients with relapsed/refractory (R/R) aggressive B-cell Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphomas (NHLs) face challenging prognosis:
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Unmet Medical Needs in NHL
CAR-T (Chimeric Antigen Receptor T cell) therapies represent a new class of cancer immunotherapy that harnesses your own immune system to fight cancer. The initial class of CAR T has shown remarkable efficacy in certain types of blood cancers. These CAR-T cells target CD19, a protein found on the surface of malignant B cells including NHL.
However, these CAR-T therapies can potentially have life-threatening side effects, such as Cytokine Release Syndrome (CRS) and neurotoxicity, which continues to pose a challenge in expanding patient access to these therapies. It is hypothesized that one of the main reasons traditional CAR-T cells have these unwanted side effects, is due to the fusing of the cancer cell-killing functional components within the T cell to the T-cell receptor that targets CD19, preventing a natural feedback loop from occurring within the T cell.
Furthermore, patients with particularly challenging R/R B-cell NHLs, such as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-associated lymphoma, central nervous system (CNS) lymphoma, and additional high-grade NHL subtypes have traditionally been excluded in clinical trials and therefore the labeling of current FDA approved CAR-T therapies.
Estrella's unique advantage - ARTEMIS T Cells
Designed as a next-generation T-cell immunotherapy, ARTEMIS T cell has an amplified ability to specifically recognize and effectively kill cancer cells. We envision that ARTEMIS T cells can initiate and then fully mobilize the evolutionary power of the entire human immune system to combat cancer while minimizing the risks of side effects caused by T-cell mediated toxicity, such as CRS and neurotoxicity.
Similar to CD19-targeting CAR-T cells, ARTEMIS T cells also specifically target CD19. However, instead of fusing all functional components into one single artificial molecule as seen in traditional CAR-T designs, we created a modular construct that closely mimics natural T-cell receptors to take advantage of innate T-cell activation and deactivation mechanisms within the cell.
