In its Second Quarter 2017 financial results, Fate Therapeutics announced:
“Our productive discussions with the FDA continue regarding the advancement of our proprietary iPSC-derived cancer immunotherapy pipeline toward first-in-human studies. We currently remain on-track to file, in the first quarter of 2018, an investigational new drug application with the FDA for FT500i, a first-of-kind natural killer cell product candidate derived from a master pluripotent cell line.”
Fate has been quiet about its development of iPSC-based immunotherapies, which is what makes this announcement so interesting. Previously, Fate Therapeutics had announced that it was commercializing a CAR T-cell products created from “master engineered iPSC lines as off-the-shelf cancer immunotherapies for the treatment of liquid and solid tumors” in partnership with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Another twist that makes Fate Therapeutics story intriguing is that in November 2016 the company achieved a $57 million private financing. As covered by Seeking Alpha, the fundraising round was led by respected investor the Redmile Group, with several other funds partipating, such as BVF and EcoR1. It is anticipated that Fate Therapeutics will use these funds to support its product pipeline, including development of its CAR-T cell products from engineered iPSC lines.
To learn more, view Fate Therapeutics’ Second Quarter 2017 Financial Results or read our article “Market Players Developing iPS Cell Therapies” highlighting Cellular Dynamics International (CDI), Cynata Therapeutics, RIKEN, and Astellas.