Benzinga | Jun 28, 2021 07:02AM EDT

Precision BioSciences and SpringWorks Therapeutics Dose First Patient in Expanded Phase 1/2a Clinical Trial Evaluating PBCAR269A with Nirogacestat in Patients with Relapsed/Refractory Multiple Myeloma

Precision BioSciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:DTIL), a clinical stage biotechnology company developing allogeneic CAR T and in vivo gene correction therapies with its ARCUS(r) genome editing platform, and SpringWorks Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:SWTX), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing life-changing medicines for patients with severe rare diseases and cancer, today announced that the first patient has been dosed in the combination arm of Precision's Phase 1/2a trial evaluating PBCAR269A. In the study, Precision's investigational allogeneic BCMA-targeted CAR T cell therapy will be combined with nirogacestat, SpringWorks' investigational gamma secretase inhibitor (GSI), in patients with relapsed/refractory (R/R) multiple myeloma.

"We are pleased to begin dosing patients in the combination arm of our ongoing Phase 1/2a study evaluating PBCAR269A, our first-generation allogeneic CAR T candidate targeting BCMA in patients with R/R multiple myeloma. BCMA is a well-established therapeutic target for multiple myeloma and this arm of the study pairs PBCAR269A with SpringWorks' nirogacestat, a gamma secretase inhibitor, a combination intended to offer strong mechanistic rationale for clinical benefit," said Alan List, M.D., Chief Medical Officer at Precision BioSciences. "As we look forward to sharing interim monotherapy data for PBCAR269A later this year, we are also conducting IND enabling studies to advance PBCAR269B, an immune-evading, stealth cell formulation into the clinic in 2022. We have high conviction in both our technology and BCMA as a target and we are pursuing a broad, data-driven strategy to inform our future development plans for this indication."

"We are pleased to advance this combination into the clinic so we can evaluate if nirogacestat paired with PBCAR269A offers a safe and efficacious treatment option for patients with multiple myeloma," said Saqib Islam, Chief Executive Officer of SpringWorks Therapeutics. "We have made significant progress in developing nirogacestat as a cornerstone of BCMA combination therapy across modalities and look forward to generating clinical data with all of our partners."

In September 2020, Precision and SpringWorks entered into a clinical collaboration in which Precision is sponsoring the expanded Phase 1/2a study of PBCAR269A to include nirogacestat and evaluate the safety and preliminary clinical activity of the combination therapy. Simultaneously, Precision continues to enroll patients in the highest dose cohort (Dose Level 3 at 6.0 ? 106 cells/kg) in its monotherapy study with PBCAR269A.