Amarna Therapeutics Teaming Up with Austrian CBmed in the Development of Immunotherapies

Dutch Amarna Therapeutics has entered into a co-operation with Austrian Center for Biomarker Research in Medicine (CBmed), for the development of immunotherapies against acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), obesity, diabetes mellitus type 2 (DM2) and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD). Amarna Therapeutics is a privately held Leiden-based biotechnology company developing a next-generation viral vector platform that could play a key role in transforming treatment across many disease areas.

The agreement includes the design, development and testing in two separate projects of a CAR T-cell therapy and reverse vaccines for the treatment of these major diseases with high unmet clinical needs. Amarna will contribute its proprietary SVac viral gene delivery vector platform to this collaboration and CBmed will perform in-vitro and in-vivo preclinical R&D and develop cutting-edge immunological assays in its core laboratory.

Immunotherapies hold an enormous potential as novel treatment options for a wide range of diseases, including cancer and degenerative diseases such as obesity, DM2 and ASCVD. The objective of this collaboration is to test Amarna’s SVac vector platform for its capacity to modulate immune responses in humans with the final aim to develop efficient treatment options for cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.

Ben van Leent, CEO of Amarna: "We are excited to extend our pipeline of products and launch activities in these important disease areas. We are convinced that the combination of the technology platform from Amarna Therapeutics and the scientific and medical expertise of CBmed will lead to the development of breakthrough solutions for a large group of immunity-associated diseases.”

Thomas Pieber, CSO of CBmed: "Biomarkers play a crucial role in the development of new therapeutic and preventive agents. This cooperation is a wonderful opportunity for CBmed to investigate novel biomarkers alongside the identification of new therapeutic targets for the innovative treatment approaches of Amarna Therapeutics."