Century Therapeutics (NASDAQ:IPSC), an innovative biotechnology company developing induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived cell therapies in immuno-oncology, and Outpace Bio, a cutting-edge biotechnology company building a platform to create next-generation smart cell therapies today announced a research collaboration in CAR engineering.
The collaboration will bring together Century’s CAR and protein engineering expertise with Outpace’s protein design and synthetic biology capabilities to enhance CAR functionality by combining Outpace’s optimized CAR spacer technology with Century’s VHH domain binders.
“As an emerging leader in iPSC-based cell therapy, investing in cutting edge cell engineering technologies is central to our approach to develop transformational next generation allogeneic cell therapies,” said Lalo Flores, Chief Executive Officer, Century Therapeutics. “The collaboration with Outpace will further enhance our protein engineering capabilities and potentially accelerate development of our proprietary next generation CARs.”
“We are excited to work together with Century to create highly optimized CARs for their exciting iPSC-based cell therapies,” said Marc Lajoie, CEO, and co-founder of Outpace. “This collaboration provides an ideal opportunity to accelerate the impact of Outpace’s spacer technology, which is part of our broader platform to enhance T cell therapies, and in turn Outpace’s protein design capabilities offer improved functionality and optionality to Century’s iPSC platform and product candidates.”
Under the terms of the agreement, Outpace will bring forward its spacer library and generate an in vitro data package of binder-spacer combinations for Century approval and selection of a candidate. Century will assess functionality in indication-relevant tumor models in vitro and in vivo.
