Sangamo Buys TxCell To Get In Early on CAR-Tregs In Immunology

Sangamo is to pay €72m to acquire France's TxCell, a specialist in chimeric antigen receptor-modified regulatory T-cells. It hopes ultimately to apply its zinc finger nuclease gene editing technology to develop next-generation allogeneic CAR-Treg therapies for immunological conditions.

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Sangamo heralds new dawn for engineered Tregs • Source: Shutterstock

Step one after its acquisition of TxCell SA will be for Sangamo Therapeutics Inc. to advance the former's lead preclinical chimeric-antigen receptor-modified regulatory T-cell ­– or CAR-Treg – candidate into the clinic. The first program Sangamo expects to take into Phase I/II studies is TX200, an autologous, lentivirus-based candidate to induce immunologic tolerance in solid organ transplant; it anticipates applying for the clinical trial authorization in renal transplant Europe in 2019 and starting the trial later in the year.

But after that, it sees the opportunity to apply its own ex vivo gene editing platform, based on zinc finger nuclease technology, to TxCell's CAR-Tregs, for

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