Elicera will not be a direct recipient of the funding. The outcomes of Essand's and Yu's research can however contribute to the design of, and simplified administration in, Elicera's upcoming clinical studies investigating its CAR T pipeline.

"The additional funding from the Swedish Cancer Society is a testament to the ground-breaking research that our co-founders are conducting at Uppsala University. The potential outcomes of their research projects will not only lay valuable groundwork for Elicera's CAR T-programmes, but also hopefully lead to the development of even more effective treatments for cancer patients in the future", says Jamal El-Mosleh, CEO of Elicera Therapeutics.

Professor Magnus Essand, applying on behalf of Uppsala University, has received 5,25 MSEK in funding to support research on how to further equip IL13Ra2-directed CAR T-cells with a molecule to allow for intravenous administration and targeting of brain tumors. This research will potentially impact Elicera's ELC-401 programme whose plans involve a potential clinical study in glioblastoma. Treatment of glioblastoma is normally administered intracranially, which is a difficult and expensive treatment compared to other methods of administration. The ELC-401 project, assuming a successful outcome, has the potential to be administered intravenously, thereby creating a clinically more available treatment with a broader target patient population.

Associate Professor Di Yu, also applying on behalf of Uppsala University, has received 2,4 MSEK in funding to support screening for important predictive data from Elicera's upcoming clinical study in B-cell lymphoma with the CAR T-programme ELC-301. Potential outcome of the new research project could be 1) identification of biomarkers to better select patients with phenotypes eligible for successful ELC-301 treatment; 2) improvement of the CAR T manufacturing process to achieve an increased quality of CAR T-cells.

About the iTANK platform

The iTANK- (immunoTherapies Activated with NAP for efficient Killing) platform is the company's own fully developed technology platform for arming and enhancing CAR T-cells to meet two of the major challenges CAR T-cell therapies face in the treatment of solid tumors: tumor antigen heterogeneity and a hostile tumor microenivornment. The technology is used to incorporate a transgene into CAR T-cells encoding a neutrophil activating protein (NAP) from the bacterium Helicobacter pylori. Upon activation, NAP secreted from the CAR(NAP) T-cells has been shown to be able to enhance the function of the CAR T-cell in addition to activating a parallel immune response via CD8+ killer T-cells. This is expected to lead to a broad attack against most antigen targets on cancer cells. The iTANK-platform is used to enhance the company's own CAR T-cells but can also be universally applied to other CAR T-cell therapies under development. More information about iTANK-platform is available here: https://www.elicera.com/technology

About ELC-301

ELC-301 a CD20-directed CAR T-cell therapy for the treatment of B-cell malignancies. ELC-301 has been armed with the company's iTANK-platform for activation of endogenous killer T-cells against the whole set of relevant target antigens on tumor cells, thus generating a powerful parallel immune response against cancer. A clinical phase I/II study is expected to be initiated during the spring of 2023.

About ELC-401

ELC-401 is an IL13Ra2-directed CAR T-cell therapy, armed with the iTANK-platform, in the treatment of a variety of solid tumors. Initially, the company intends to use ELC-401 in the treatment of glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer, but the company sees potential for the treatment of additional solid tumors such as colon cancer, pancreatic cancer and melanoma.