CERo Therapeutics Presents Preclinical Data Demonstrating CER-1236 Killing Ovarian Cancer Cell Lines Without Toxicity

CERo Therapeutics Holdings, Inc. recently announced the presentation of preclinical data demonstrating the capability of its lead compound CER-1236 to kill ovarian cancer cells in preclinical models with no indications of toxicity in animal models.  The data were presented in a poster at the Society for Immunology of Cancer (SITC) 2024 conference held in Houston November 6-10, 2024.

Interim CEO Chris Ehrlich said “We have long contended that CER-1236 has application in multiple cancer types.  While we await the opportunity to introduce our compound into the clinic for AML, we continue to see other models in which there is utility and minimal-to-no toxicity.  These data are of particular interest as the Company plans to apply for Orphan designation at the appropriate time in clinical development.  Regardless, these data are further confirmation that our approach has enormous potential to go beyond some of the limitations of current chemotherapy approaches.”

The study, titled TIM-4 Expression on Ovarian Cancer Samples can be Targeted by Engineered Chimeric Engulfment Receptor T cells without Toxicity, investigators assessed CER-1236 on the immune receptor TIM-4-L in ovarian cancer cell lines.  Results demonstrated that following the introduction of CER-1236 on these cell lines, TIM-4-L increased, which then responded with the killing of the cancer cells, but with no observed toxicity to healthy cells.  The study further showed CER-1236 specificity to TIM-L-4, which investigators concluded that combined with the lack of association with clinically relevant toxicity, may make the compound an attractive option for treating ovarian cancer.

CERo is an innovative immunotherapy company advancing the development of next generation engineered T cell therapeutics for the treatment of cancer. Its proprietary approach to T cell engineering, which enables it to integrate certain desirable characteristics of both innate and adaptive immunity into a single therapeutic construct, is designed to engage the body’s full immune repertoire to achieve optimized cancer therapy. This novel cellular immunotherapy platform is expected to redirect patient-derived T cells to eliminate tumors by building in engulfment pathways that employ phagocytic mechanisms to destroy cancer cells, creating what CERo refers to as Chimeric Engulfment Receptor T cells (CER-T). CERo believes the differentiated activity of CER-T cells will afford them greater therapeutic application than currently approved chimeric antigen receptor (CAR-T) cell therapy, as the use of CER-T may potentially span both hematological malignancies and solid tumors. CERo anticipates initiating clinical trials for its lead product candidate, CER-1236, in early 2025 for hematological malignancies.