Difficult! To survive, the cell therapy company sold its CAR-T business.

Read: After struggling, I still sell my CAR-T business.
, unumTherapeutics doesn't seem to be having a good time.
August 31st, foreign media reported that the cell therapy listed company (UMRX) announced that it would sell its BOXR platform and its main candidate CAR-T product, BOXR1030, to SOTOIO, a Czech biotech company.
agreement, the deal is worth $11.5 million, including an $8.1 million advance payment from SOTO to Unum and a potentially high milestone payment of $3.4 million in the future.
for SOTOIO, it seems like a good choice to officially enter the CAR-T field at such a low price.
it is understood that SOTOI will next undertake the development of Unum's main candidate, BOXR1030, and plans to bring the drug to clinical stage in 2021.
but the deal came to Unum, and maybe it was all mixed up.
2020, Unum has sold its CAR-T business after struggling with layoffs, narrowing research and development pipelines and reornching its strategy.
this is less than half a year after Unum decided to "focus its strategic focus on CAR-T products."
01, the buyer's happy seller, Yu Unum, was founded in 2013 as a new cell therapy company focused on the treatment of solid tumors.
April 2018, Unum made a high-profile landing on NASDAQ Capital Markets with a $700 million IPO.
the end of 2019, Unum announced a strategic transfer plan that focuses on antibody coupling T-cells (ACTRs) and Bolt-On chime-in-the-boxR candidates for solid tumor and platform capabilities.
unum's two core product lines (source: Unum) However, in less than a year, Unum's two core product lines are now "in the dodgy" and one is "sold out".
look here at the BOXRCAR-T platform sold in this deal.
Reportedly, the platform can overcome the immunosuppression of solid tumors, the aim is to find new genetically modified organisms that can be expressed in co-expression with embedded targeting subjects, and to overcome the resistance of solid tumor micro-environments to T-cell attacks by integrating "bolt-on" genetically modified organisms, thereby improving the function of T-cells in solid tumor micro-environments and overcoming immunosuppression of solid tumors.
BOXR1030 is the first candidate for the BOXR platform and has been developed for liver cell carcinoma and other solid tumors.
According to preclinical studies, boxR1030's "bolt-on" GM mechanism is clear, and it is resistant to the inhibitory tumor microenvironment, compared with the traditional GPC3CAR-T cells, in the low oxygen and low glucose conditions, both show that T cell proliferation has improved, with better tumor killing ability.
is expected to launch its first clinical study in 2021, following its takeover by SOTOIO.
SOTOO is a Czech-based biotechnology company focused on the development of innovative cancer drugs.
decade since its founding, SOTIO has been expanding its product line, from IL-15 agonists to antibody-coupled drugs, and now it's successfully entering the CAR-T field.
Through this transaction, SOTIO said it will establish a T-cell therapy research and development center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and work closely with the BOXR team to further simplify process development and clinical-grade cell therapy production, using its expertise and GMP cell therapy production base.
it's worth noting that as the deal is completed, some researchers from the original BOXR project will join SOTOIO to continue the BOXR research and development program, including Geoff Hodge, Unum's former chief technology officer.
"We welcome Geoff Hodge's continued leadership of BOXR development," SOTIO CEO Radek Šp?ek said of the future, "and the access to the BOXR platform allows us to design CAR-T to survive longer in solid tumor micro-environments, which further enhances SOTIO's research and development pipeline for treating solid tumors."
", but from the seller's unum point of view, the atmosphere is a little subtle.
"We are very proud of BOXR technology.
look forward to better progress on the BOXR program in the future.
," said Chuck Wilson, President and CEO of Unum.
after all, boxR has been considered the best hope for Unum to turn the page quickly after the ACTR product line collapsed over the past year or so.
02, faltering: the changing strategic center of gravity antibody coupled T-cell lily (ACTR) is another regret of Unum.
this is a universal engineering cell therapy that uses antibodies to target tumor cells, allowing ACTRT cells to act as killer to tumor cells.
unlike cell therapies such as CAR-T or TCR, in which the cell's subjects are trained to treat a small group of tumors, the treatment is not limited to specific targets and can be used for many different types of cancer.
" ACTR represents an innovative technology that can be used to target different types of tumors and has great prospects.
exciting to be able to extend this technology to targeted solid tumors.
" Chuck Wilson once expressed a strong interest in the treatment.
ACTR087 is Unum's lead drug based on ACTR technology.
was born, ACTR087 was even considered a cell therapy to rival Gillette Yescarta and Novarma Kymriah: in a trial compared to the efficacy of Yescarta and Kymriah, ACTR08 7 in a joint study with Rituxan in seven patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, with a full response rate of 29 percent, which was no less than yescarta and Kymriah's full response rate of 39 percent and 32 percent in the third month.
also benefited from this data, unum successfully raised $62 million for ACTR087's follow-up development.
the progress that followed was less than satisfactory.
December 2017, in the early stages of ACTR087, one of the nine patients who received high doses died of neurotoxicity associated with ACTR087 and the other from cytokine release syndrome.
adverse reactions led to the clinical trial being called off until February 2018, when the FDA re-opened the green light.
months after the election, Unum made a strategic shift: removing the priority of ACTR087 and shifting its focus to ACTR707, a candidate treatment for lymphoma.
the worries have not gone away.
condition got worse in 2019, when the FDA again called off ATTCK-20-2, a phase I clinical study of ACTR087 for lymphoma, because one patient experienced severe adverse events in the trial, including level 3 neurotoxicity and cytokine virus (CMV) infections, as well as level 4 respiratory distress.
two months after the attack, actR087 was officially abandoned.
Unum's share price on the Nasdaq has suffered repeated setbacks as a result of repeated adverse events, and by March 2020 its share price had fallen from a peak of $17.66 per share at the start of the listing to a trough of $0.30 per share.
source: The Once-hopeful candidate, ACTR707, was no different during this grey period.
same time, Unum announced 60 per cent job cuts, and Seth Ettenberg, the company's chief science officer for more than five years, left in the wave of job cuts, leaving for BlueRock Therapeutics, a regenerative stem cell company.
was at this time that Unum set its sights on the BOXR platform.
"Prioritize the allocation of resources to advance the BOXR1030," the company said in a statement, "with pipeline and personnel reductions, the company's funding will remain available until mid-2021, and boxR1030 is expected to submit an IND application by the end of 2020."
", unum wouldn't have thought that boxR, which had high hopes, would still be sold by the end of 2020.
back to unum's repeated setbacks, the key origin is the recurring crisis of serious adverse reactions in clinical trials.
This is also the problem that cell therapy has been pressing, whether it is the frequency of clinical deaths in Juno and KITE in the early years, or the crisis of adverse events in Cellectis and Poseida so far this year, safety concerns have always been a hanging sword of Damocles.
For SOTOIO, although it successfully entered the CAR-T field after taking over Unum's BOXR platform, it not only meant a difficult start in the field of CAR-T solid tumors, but it was also prudent on safety issues.
certainly not giving up on exploration.
On July 6th Unum announced the completion of its acquisition of Precision Kinase Inhibitor Discovery and Development Biotech, while Unum said it would reinstate the proceeds from the sale of BOXR in the development of the company's current project, PLX9486, which is a major punch in the way of its new strategic focus, the development of small molecule precision kinase inhibitors.
this time, how far can Unum go to start again?