Synergistic Collaboration for Innovation: Chengdu Urocell and Shanghai Ukadi Announce Strategic Partnership to Advance CAR-T Therapies

Recently, UCELLO, a universal allogeneic CAR-T company, and SHANGHAI UNICAR-THERAPY BIOMED-PHAMACEUTICAL TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD, an autologous CAR-T companySigned a strategic cooperation agreement. Both parties will leverage their respective strengths,Jointly promote CAR-T in hematological tumors,Autoimmune Diseases,Drug development in the field of solid tumors。 

During the signing of the agreement, Dr. Qiang Zou, Chairman of UCELLO, invited Dr. Lei Yu, Chairman of SHANGHAI UNICAR-THERAPY BIOMED-PHAMACEUTICAL TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD, and his team to visit UCELLO's R&D and industrialization base located in Chengdu Tianfu International Bio City. Both parties had in-depth discussions regarding their respective company profiles, R&D progress, and specific cooperation matters at the business level. They expressed that there is strong complementarity between the two companies and looked forward to collaborating deeply in areas such as R&D, clinical trials, and industrial transformation.

Referencing the U.S. FDA’s regulatory framework for Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products (ATMP), China's NMPA will introduce a Chinese version of the ATMP framework, optimizing the registration and application process for cutting-edge biopharmaceutical innovations, accelerating the release of relevant technical guidelines, and advancing the research, development, and market entry of products, thereby promoting the alignment of China’s pharmaceutical regulatory system with international standards.According to the latest article published by CDE, the Center for Drug Evaluation under the National Medical Products Administration, in the "China Food and Drug Administration Journal," CDE has preliminarily proposed the classification of ATMP in China, planning to categorize ATMP into cell therapy products, gene therapy products, and other types.As of June 2024, five CAR-T products for hematologic tumors have been approved in China, making CAR-T the first track in the ATMP field to achieve commercialization. Based on the technical principles and mechanisms of CAR-T, it holds extremely broad application prospects in hematologic tumors, solid tumors, autoimmune diseases, and even anti-aging fields. Moreover, there is clear potential for technological iteration in areas such as universal allogeneic cell therapy, in vivo generation of CAR-T, and combination with RNAi.

UCELLO and SHANGHAI UNICAR-THERAPY BIOMED-PHAMACEUTICAL TECHNOLOGY CO., LTDStrategic cooperation represents the full integration between the T-cell technology platform of allogeneic universal CAR-T companies and the extensive CMC, registration submission, clinical operation, and other drug development experiences possessed by leading full-strategy CAR-T enterprises.In the future, the cooperation between the two parties in terms of mutual asset authorization and even at the capital level holds immense potential for imagination. We look forward to this collaboration bringing new changes to the CAR-T industry and benefiting a wide range of patients as soon as possible.

About UCELLO:

Founded in 2020, UCELLO is committed to the research and industrialization of allogeneic off-the-shelf CAR-T drugs derived from umbilical cord blood. The company’s self-developed cell engineering modification technology has overcome industry pain points and demonstrated promising therapeutic effects for end-stage patients with acute B-cell lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL) and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). The company is accelerating its industrialization process, building a "self-developed industrial chain" system, collaboratively breaking through core technical bottlenecks, and continuously innovating in the field of immune cell therapy.

AboutUNICAR-THERAPY： 

Founded in 2015, SHANGHAI UNICAR-THERAPY BIOMED-PHAMACEUTICAL TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD is an innovative leading company in the field of CAR-T in China. Currently, it has one dual-target (targeting antigen molecules and mRNA within CAR-T cells) autologous CAR-T for hematological tumors in Phase II clinical trials, one non-CD19-target autologous CAR-T for refractory and relapsed B-cell lymphoma in Phase I clinical trials, and multiple autologous and universal CAR-T products targeting new solid tumor antigens under development in investigator-initiated trial (IIT) clinical studies, with in vivo CAR-T related technologies in reserve. After nearly 10 years of development, empowered by artificial intelligence technology, UCELLO has developed and owns a vast CAR molecule library, accumulated hundreds of clinical cases from over 20 single-target and dual-target CAR-T therapies, small RNA interference technology for silencing cytokine expression (such as knocking down interleukins associated with cytokine release syndrome [CRS] and knocking down PD1), and LNP-mediated RNA delivery to generate CAR-T cells in vivo, showcasing highly differentiated and promising advantages.