Biotech Arovella to receive Europe patent for its iNKT cell therapy platform

Arovella Therapeutics Ltd (ASX: ALA) has announce plans by the European Patent Office to grant a patent for the Biotech company’s iNKT cell therapy platform which is under licence to Arovella from Imperial College Innovations Limited.

To the uninitiated, Arovella is focused on developing its invariant Natural Killer T (iNKT) cell platform to treat cancer.

The patent application, which covers the manufacturing of CAR-iNKT cells, is expected to receive the green light early 2023 following completion of the grant formalities.

Once granted, the patent will have a maximum term that will expire 28 February 2039.

Excellent milestone

Commenting on today’s announcement, Arovella’s CEO Dr Michael Baker notes receiving the notice that this European patent application will proceed to grant is an excellent milestone for the company’s technology.

“We are excited to continue developing the therapy to demonstrate the value of our platform and to have a positive impact on the lives of many cancer patients,” Baker notes.

It’s understood that corresponding applications are pending in the US, Canada, China, Hong Kong and Australia.

Pre-clinical studies

Arovella acquired the iNKT cell therapy platform technology under licence from Imperial College London in June 2021.

Management notes the completed pre-clinical studies demonstrate CAR19-iNKT cells are a robust therapeutic option for eliminating haematological malignancies (blood cancers) that produce CD19, with further enhanced activity against cancers that also produce CD1d.

“Arovella has partnered with Imugene (ASX: IMU) to combine ALA-101 with Imugene’s on CARlytics platform, which opens up the possibility of using ALA-101 to tackle solid tumours,” the company noted.

Outperformance

Within pre-clinical studies Arovella’s ALA-101 has been shown to outperform conventional T cells against cancers that express CD19 and CD1d.

Management notes a key feature of iNKT cells is that they can be used off the shelf and collected from a healthy donor, re-engineered to target cancer cells and given to patients when required.

“The iNKT cell therapy platform technology that is the subject of this patent family can also target different cancers by employing, for example, Arovella’s DKK-1-peptide targeting technology under a licence from MD Anderson Cancer Center.”

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