Carisma switches cells

In February ApexOnco reported the start of a first-in-human trial of Carisma’s first Car-monocyte therapy, CT-0525, and this week the reason became clear. Far from representing a wider research focus this signals a switch, with Carisma now prioritising CT-0525 and turning away from Car-macrophages, the company announced in its fourth-quarter statement. The aim is to stretch cash reserves ($78m at the end of 2023) into the third quarter of 2025, but an inescapable fact is that Carisma’s Car-engineered macrophages had shown little to be excited about. CT-0508, the company’s HER2-targeting Car-macrophage, showed nothing better than stable disease among 14 patients, and the group now hypothesises that a Car-monocyte approach could result in 2,000-fold higher Car exposure than with a Car-macrophage therapy. As such it hopes that CT-0525, which also targets HER2, holds the key to seeing some efficacy, and the first patient in the phase 1 study listed on clinicaltrials.gov in February is to be dosed in the current quarter. This looks like the last chance for Carisma, which in 2022 reversed into the listed shell of Sesen Bio on the promise of Car-macrophages, but whose market cap has now fallen below $80m.

Carisma's R&D pipeline

Source: OncologyPipeline.