iPSC-based Cell Therapies for I&I Diseases

Autoimmune diseases are a result of the immune system being misdirected towards its host. More than 80 autoimmune diseases have been described. Current treatments rely on usage of broad immunosuppressive agents that can manage diseases but often are not curative. Also, many patients do not respond to the currently used treatments. Thus, there is a high unmet medical need to treat autoimmune disorders.

Recently, engineered immune cells have shown their power against multiple immune disorders. Especially, autologous CAR T cell approaches demonstrated a disease remission in patients with SLE and other autoimmune disorders¹.

We aim to develop a portfolio of iPSC-derived immune cells to treat patients with high unmet medical need in timely manner.

Our scientific approach combines underlying disease biology with cutting edge technologies.

In line with this, we are developing iPSC-based off-the-shelf cell therapies for autoimmune diseases to (1) reset the immune system to achieve disease remission and (2) regenerate or replace autoimmune disease-damaged tissue.

Combining iPSC-derived immune effector cells with different targeting modalities and gene-edits facilitates bespoke tailoring of therapies to specific disease indications. Evotec provides all technologies and know-how available to combine iPSC cells with different targeting modalities for target cell specificity, depending on scientific rationale and partner needs.

Ultimately, it is our ambition to provide frozen, off-the-shelf cell therapeutic products for significant patient numbers.

We believe that cell therapy will have a major impact in the field of I&I, and we are building a portfolio of iPSC-derived immune cell-based product candidates.

Our I&I cell therapy portfolio consists of iPSC-derived immune cells including abT cells, NK cells, and macrophages.

1) Muller et al. N Engl J Med 2024; 390:687-700