Fate Therapeutics Inc (FATE)

[jondoeuk]

New preclinical data which show that its iPSC-derived NK cell product candidate FT538 exhibits "significantly enhanced" serial killing and functional persistence compared to peripheral blood NK cells https://www.cell.com/cell-stem-cell/fulltext/S1934-5909(21)00350-7

The data showed that FT538 persists in vivo at high levels for more than six weeks in the absence of cytokine support, whereas peripheral blood NK cells required co-infusion of either IL-2 or IL-15 to achieve low-level persistence for up to two weeks. Additionally, in sequential killing assays, FT538 was shown to have robust serial killing and functional persistence, which were not observed with peripheral blood NK cells. The superior antitumour activity of FT538 was attributable to its novel engineered components, including the knockout of CD38 and the expression of IL-15/IL-15R fusion protein.