WuXi ATU and Wugen Announce Manufacturing Partnership to Expedite the Delivery of Novel Cell Cancer Immunotherapies

PHILADELPHIA and ST. LOUIS, MO and SAN DIEGO, June 16, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- WuXi Advanced Therapies (WuXi ATU), a global Contract Testing, Development and Manufacturing Organization (CTDMO), and Wugen Inc., a clinical-stage biotechnology company based in St. Louis and San Diego, today announced a partnership to produce Wugen's WU-NK-101, a novel immunotherapy that harnesses the power of memory natural killer (NK) cells to treat cancers. WuXi ATU will provide manufacturing and testing services for WU-NK-101 to enable the delivery of this innovative cell therapy product to cancer patients.

Wugen aims to develop a pipeline of off-the-shelf cell therapy products to treat a broad range of hematological and solid tumor malignancies. As Wugen's first program from the company's proprietary Moneta^TM platform, WU-NK-101 leverages the hyper-functional, long-lasting anti-tumor functionality of memory NK cells to manufacture next-generation, off-the-shelf cancer cell therapies at commercial scale. WU-NK-101 is currently in development to treat acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) and solid tumors.

WuXi ATU's integrated CTDMO platform enables the development of WU-NK-101 by leveraging the company's Good Manufacturing Process (GMP) cell therapy manufacturing and testing capabilities to support regulatory filings and clinical trials.

"We are delighted to partner with WuXi ATU," said Dr. Dan Kemp, President and Chief Executive Officer of Wugen. "With WuXi ATU's cell therapy manufacturing expertise, integrated GMP manufacturing and testing capabilities, we can keep advancing our allogeneic WU-NK-101 program into clinical trials and accelerate the timeline for delivering convenient, effective therapeutics to patients."

"The development of allogeneic NK cell therapies is a significant step towards accelerating the progress of these innovative cancer therapeutics into the clinical pipeline," said Dr. David Chang, Chief Executive Officer of WuXi ATU. "We're delighted to partner with Wugen to help make these life-saving cancer treatments less challenging to produce and more accessible to patients in need."

About WU-NK-101

WU-NK-101 is a novel immunotherapy harnessing the power of memory natural killer (NK) cells to treat liquid and solid tumors. Memory NK cells are hyper-functional, long-lasting immune cells that exhibit enhanced anti-tumor activity and a cytokine-induced memory-like (CIML) phenotype. This rare cell population has a superior phenotype, proliferation capacity, and metabolic fitness that makes it better suited for cancer therapy than other NK cell therapies. Wugen is applying its proprietary Moneta^TM platform to advance WU-NK-101 as a commercially scalable, off-the-shelf cell therapy for cancer. WU-NK-101 is currently in development for acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) and solid tumors.

About Wugen

Wugen, Inc., is a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing the next generation of off-the-shelf memory natural killer (NK) and CAR-T cell therapies for cancer. Wugen is leveraging its proprietary Moneta^TM platform and deep genomic engineering expertise to pioneer a new class of memory NK cell therapies with a cytokine-induced memory-like (CIML) phenotype, uniquely designed to treat hematological and solid tumor malignancies. For more information, please visit www.wugen.com.  

About WuXi Advanced Therapies (WuXi ATU)

As the advanced therapies business unit of WuXi AppTec, WuXi Advanced Therapies is a Contract Testing, Development and Manufacturing Organization (CTDMO) that offers integrated platforms to transform the discovery, development, testing, manufacturing, and commercialization of cell and gene therapies. Our services and solutions accelerate time to market and support customer programs around the world. For more information, please visit www.advancedtherapies.com.

Contact:

Wugen Inc
Elsie Yau
Stern Investor Relations, Inc.
Tel: 212-698-8700
Email: elsie.yau@sternir.com  

WuXi ATU
Sophie Lutter
Head of Scientific Marketing and Communications
Email: atu.info@wuxiapptec.com

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