Eureka Therapeutics Announces Initiation of Phase 1/2 Clinical Trial

Eureka Therapeutics, Inc. recently announced initiation of Phase 1/2 clinical trial of ET140202 ARTEMIS T-cell therapy in liver cancer at City of Hope, a world-renowned independent research and treatment center for cancer, diabetes and other life-threatening diseases, based in Duarte, CA.

The Phase 1/2 study is a multicenter, open-label, dose-escalating clinical trial of ET140202 ARTEMIS T-cell therapy for the treatment of advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), the predominant type of liver cancer.

Patients with advanced HCC have a very poor prognosis and limited treatment options. The rate of liver cancer diagnosis has more than tripled since 1980, according to the American Cancer Society. About 42,030 new cases are expected, and about 31,780 people are expected to die from the disease in 2019.

ET140202 utilizes Eureka’s proprietary ARTEMIS antibody T-cell receptor (AbTCR) platform engineered with a proprietary human TCR-mimic (TCRm) antibody to target an alpha fetoprotein (AFP)-peptide/HLA-A2 complex on HCC cancer cells. Data presented in September 2018 from Eureka’s ongoing proof-of-concept first-in-human study of ET140202 in China demonstrated a favorable safety profile with no observed cytokine release syndrome or drug-related neurotoxicity.

“The novel T-cell platform has the potential to transform T-cell therapy into an outpatient procedure,” said Yuman Fong, MD, Director of the Center for Surgical Innovation at City of Hope and co-investigator of the ongoing clinical trial. “We, Eureka Therapeutics and others, are designing T-cell therapies with low toxicity.”

The patients who are selected for the clinical trial have metastatic or locally advanced, inoperable liver cancer and have progressed or have not been able to tolerate at least one line of treatment for their disease. The clinical trial tests for safety and proper dosing levels. If the initial study participants react favorably, the trial will move into drug efficacy testing.

“Traditional immunotherapy such as checkpoint inhibitors releases the breaks on the immune system, which allows it to sometimes attack the tumor but can also lead to attacks on other parts of the human body,” said Daneng Li, MD, Principal Investigator of the ongoing study and a medical oncologist at City of Hope. “This approach engineers immune cells to directly attack a protein that is expressed on liver cancer. We are trying to individualize treatment for patients with advanced liver cancer.”

“We are pleased to work with City of Hope on bringing ET140202 therapy to patients with advanced HCC. Our approach has been to use our ARTEMIS T-cell platform with higher target specificity to address the safety and other challenges in the treatment of solid tumors,” said Dr. Cheng Liu, Founder and CEO of Eureka Therapeutics. “HCC is a devastating disease, and we are delighted that City of Hope is using their broad expertise to potentially accelerate our efforts and provide additional opportunities to combat this and other diseases.”

About Eureka Therapeutics, Inc.
Eureka Therapeutics, Inc. is a privately held clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing novel T-cell therapies that harness the evolutionary power of the immune system. Its core technology centers around its proprietary ARTEMIS AbTCR T-cell receptor platform and E-ALPHA antibody discovery platform for the discovery and development of potentially safer and more effective T-cell therapies for the treatment of multiple solid and hematologic tumors.

Eureka Therapeutics, Inc. is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area. For more information on Eureka, please visit www.eurekatherapeutics.com.