In an interview with PharmaShots, Dr. Murat Kalayoglu, MD, Ph.D., President, and Chief Executive Officer at Cartesian Therapeutics shared his insights on the P-I/IIa study of Descartes-08 for the treatment of the chronic autoimmune disorder generalized myasthenia gravis (gMG)
Shots:
- Descartes-08 is an autologous T-cell product that is engineered with RNA to encode for CAR
- The company focuses to use RNA instead of DNA to engineer the cell target that helps to target antigen without increasing the risk of these cells proliferating out of control and causing the typical CAR-T cell toxicities
- Cartesian has currently three RNA cell therapies i.e., Descartes-08 & Descartes-11 which are being developed for multiple myeloma, high-risk patients, newly diagnosed multiple myeloma while Descartes-30 is an off-the-shelf, RNA engineered cell therapy. The company is expected to complete the P-II studies in 2022 and registration studies in 2024