ZLNA: Zelluna ASA awarded NOK 15.6 million Research Council of Norway grant to further advance TCR-NK manufacturing
2026-11-04 17:05:01
Oslo, 4 November 2026 - Zelluna (OSE: ZLNA), a company pioneering allogeneic
"off-the-shelf" T Cell Receptor-based Natural Killer (TCR-NK) cell therapies for
the treatment of solid cancers, today announced that the Research Council of
Norway has approved a grant of NOK 15.6 million to Zelluna under the Innovation
Project for the Industrial Sector (IPN) scheme.
* NOK 15.6 million non-dilutive grant awarded by the Research Council of
Norway
* Funding will enable further manufacturing development, strengthen the cost-
of-goods advantage of Zelluna's off-the-shelf TCR-NK platform and support
Zelluna's strategy to make TCR-NK cell therapies broadly accessible to
patients with solid cancers
* Award subject to final contract negotiations with the Research Council of
Norway
Cell therapies have transformed the treatment of certain cancers, but they
remain costly and resource-intensive to manufacture, which severely limits
patient access and commercial scalability. The grant will support Zelluna's
continued improvement of the manufacturing process for its TCR-NK cell therapy
platform, building on the Company's established clinical manufacturing
capabilities. The project aims to further increase the number of patient doses
produced from each donor while further reducing the cost of goods sold (COGS)
per dose, strengthening this advantage further.
"We are delighted to receive this continued support from the Research Council of
Norway. Our established manufacturing process has successfully delivered
clinical material for our ongoing ZIMA-101 trial. This project will allow us to
build on that foundation, further improving manufacturing efficiency and
increasing the number of patient doses produced from each donor, with the
ambition of making off-the-shelf TCR-NK cell therapies broadly accessible to
patients with solid cancers", said Namir Hassan, CEO of Zelluna.
For further information, please visit www.zelluna.com or contact:
Namir Hassan, CEO
Email: namir.hassan@zelluna.com
Phone: +44 7720 687608
Geir Christian Melen, CFO
Email: geir.christian.melen@zelluna.com
Phone: +47 913 02 965
About Zelluna ASA Zelluna ASA (OSE: ZLNA) is a Company pioneering allogeneic
'off-the-shelf' T Cell Receptor-based Natural Killer (TCR-NK) cell therapies for
the treatment of solid cancers. The company's platform combines the innate
killing power of NK cells with precise solid tumour targeting of TCRs, designed
to address the limitations of current cell therapies in solid tumours. The
company's lead candidate, ZI-MA4-1, is the world's first MAGE-A4 targeting TCR-
NK therapy in clinical development. Zelluna is headquartered at the Oslo Cancer
Cluster Innovation Park in Oslo, Norway and is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange
under the ticker ZLNA.
orway and is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange\
under the ticker ZLNA.\