Carisma Therapeutics

CAR Macrophage Immunotherapy

CT-0525 Clin0 solid tumors; CT-1119 Clin0 solid tumors; CT-0729 RD prostate cancer; undisclosed RD oncology

Carisma Therapeutics is developing novel chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) macrophage technology to treat solid tumors. Engineering T cells with CARs has shown great advances in the treatment of hematologic malignancies, but such results have not been translated to solid tumors. Macrophages are a key component of the immune system that eat cancer cells from solid tumors. Carisma is engineering macrophages with CARs to redirect their activity towards tumor cells to provide long-term anti-tumor immunity. Carisma’s lead candidate, CT-0508, is an ex vivo gene-modified autologous therapy to treat HER2 solid tumors in Phase 1 development. Carisma is also working on allogeneic CAR-Macrophages that would provide an off-the-shelf product enabling more patients to benefit from their cell therapies.