RHU EpCART
As of December 2021, 17 projects have been selected for funding under the RHU, including the EpCART project, which has received nearly 10 million euros. Led by Dr. Sebastian Amigorena, one of the Mnemo Therapeutics scientific co-founders and head of the Immune Responses and Cancer team at Institut Curie, the EpCART project aims to obtain clinical validation of a new approach of CAR-T cell immunotherapy.
Project phases
About
The EpCART program combines the strong complementary expertise of three partners in the fields of translational medicine and gene therapy: Institut Curie, Mnemo Therapeutics, a spin-off of Institut Curie and Memorial Sloane Kettering (NY-USA) dedicated to new generation gene therapies, and the AP-HP MEARY Center for Cell and Gene Therapy of the AP-HP.
The RHU funding will allow the finalization of the preclinical work already carried out in order to rapidly move on to the clinical phase which will evaluate new CAR-T models produced by an academic structure, a first in France.
A Phase I-II clinical trial including 35 patients should begin within two years. It will include patients with solid tumors of different locations (triple-negative breast cancer, lung cancer, mesothelioma, etc.), and will be followed by two additional phases, one dedicated to triple-negative breast cancer and the other chosen according to the results of the first phase.
The EpCART project focuses on the epigenetic reprogramming of CAR-T cells. By inactivating SUV39H1, an enzyme essential for T cell differentiation, the memory phenotype of these cells can be significantly increased. This allows for durable tumor control and prevents patient relapse.
The proposed clinical development of product 1 in the EpCART RHU is progressing well. The manufacturing process is currently being developed at the CellAction PSCC-Curie platform. This process will shortly be transferred to the MEARY Center. Once all regulatory approvals have been obtained, the clinical trial should begin by the second quarter of 2026.
epCART is supported by the French National Research Agency (ANR), and is included in the France 2030 plan under the reference ANR-21-RHUS-0016.
EpCART consortium
- Sebastian Amigorena, head of the Immune Responses and Cancer team (Institut Curie, Inserm), principal investigator of the project
- Nicolas Girard, pneumologist at the Institut Curie, coordinator of the Institut du Thorax Curie-Montsouris
- Marion Alcantara, Hematologist, doctoral student in the Immune Responses and Cancer team (Institut Curie, Inserm)
- Cécile Alanio, Research physician in the Immune Responses and Cancer team (Institut Curie, Inserm)
- Michael Saitakis, scientist at Mnemo Therapeutics
- Nathalie Amzallag, Immunotherapy project leader, Immunity and Cancer Unit (Institut Curie, Inserm)
- Jérôme Larghero, Director of the MEARY cell and gene therapy center.