NEW YORK – Coeptis Therapeutics said on Tuesday that it has teamed up with the University of Pittsburgh to study its SNAP-CAR therapy as a treatment for HER2-positive cancers.
Under this research agreement, the university will conduct preclinical research to support an investigational new drug application filing with the US Food and Drug Administration. Pittsburgh researchers Jason Lohmueller and Alexander Deiters will collaborate with Coeptis' contract research organization, IQVIA, to study the therapy in HER2-expressing ovarian cancers or other solid tumors and identify a lead indication to advance into the clinic.
The research agreement comes after Wexford, Pennsylvania-headquartered Coeptis licensed the SNAP-CAR program from the University of Pittsburgh in September. The treatment is designed to pair "universal" CAR T cells with antibody adaptors, allowing them to bind to various cancer targets without being specifically engineered against a given target. This makes the therapy programmable for different cancer indications with different targets, according to Coeptis.
In a statement, Coeptis President and CEO Dave Mehalick expressed excitement that the collaboration with Pittsburgh could help move SNAP-CAR into clinical testing, particularly in HER2-expressing ovarian cancer. "If successful, this could represent a potential breakthrough in the treatment of HER2-positive cancers and the applicability of CAR T to treat a range of solid tumors, including ovarian and breast cancer, as well as hematologic cancers," Mehalick said.