Cellectis is a French biopharmaceutical company. It develops genome-edited chimeric antigen receptor

T-cell A T cell is a type of lymphocyte. T cells are one of the important white blood cells of the immune system and play a central role in the adaptive immune response. T cells can be distinguished from other lymphocytes by the presence of a T-cell rec ...

technologies for

cancer immunotherapy Cancer immunotherapy (sometimes called immuno-oncology) is the stimulation of the immune system to treat cancer, improving on the immune system's natural ability to fight the disease. It is an application of the fundamental research of cancer im ...

. It has offices in Paris, New York City, and Raleigh, North Carolina.

History

Cellectis was founded by

André Choulika André Choulika (born 1965) is a biotechnologist, the inventor of nuclease-based genome editing and a pioneer in the analysis and use of meganucleases to modify complex genomes. Early life and education André Choulika was born in Beirut, Lebano ...

in 1999. It built up a successful business based on the use of

Meganuclease Meganucleases are endodeoxyribonucleases characterized by a large recognition site (double-stranded DNA sequences of 12 to 40 base pairs); as a result this site generally occurs only once in any given genome. For example, the 18-base pair sequence r ...

genome engineering Genome editing, or genome engineering, or gene editing, is a type of genetic engineering in which DNA is inserted, deleted, modified or replaced in the genome of a living organism. Unlike early genetic engineering techniques that randomly inserts g ...

. Cellectis went public in 2007, and raised €21.2 million in a stock offering on Euronext. In 2010, it acquired Cyto Pulse, which had developed a new electroporation technology, and in 2011 it paid €28 million for Cellartis, a Swedish biotechnology company. In January 2011 the company licensed

TALEN Transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALEN) are restriction enzymes that can be engineered to cut specific sequences of DNA. They are made by fusing a TAL effector DNA-binding domain to a DNA cleavage domain (a nuclease which cuts DN ...

gene-editing technology from

Iowa State University Iowa State University of Science and Technology (Iowa State University, Iowa State, or ISU) is a public land-grant research university in Ames, Iowa. Founded in 1858 as the Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm, Iowa State became one of the n ...

and the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...

. The company employed nearly 300 people in early 2014. With the advent of the CRISPR ( clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat) genome editing technique, the Cellectis meganuclease technology became uneconomic, and by 2013 the company was close to

bankruptcy Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor ...

. It restructured, closed

laboratories A laboratory (; ; colloquially lab) is a facility that provides controlled conditions in which scientific or technological research, experiments, and measurement may be performed. Laboratory services are provided in a variety of settings: physicia ...

and reduced staff, and shifted research emphasis toward

CAR-T In biology, chimeric antigen receptors (CARs)—also known as chimeric immunoreceptors, chimeric T cell receptors or artificial T cell receptors—are receptor proteins that have been engineered to give T cells the new ability to target a specific ...

technologies for

. Early in 2014 it reached a substantial financing deal with

Servier Servier Laboratories (French: Laboratoires Servier, often abbreviated to Servier) is an international pharmaceutical company governed by a non-profit foundation, with its headquarters in France (Suresnes). The consolidated turnover for the 2018 ...

, and later in the same year made a much larger agreement with

Pfizer Pfizer Inc. ( ) is an American multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology corporation headquartered on 42nd Street in Manhattan, New York City. The company was established in 1849 in New York by two German entrepreneurs, Charles Pfizer ...

and Allogene. In March 2015 the company raised $228 million through a stock offering on

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...

. The shares fell by 15% in the first week of

trading Trade involves the transfer of goods and services from one person or entity to another, often in exchange for money. Economists refer to a system or network that allows trade as a market. An early form of trade, barter, saw the direct exchan ...

Calyxt

Cellectis formed the subsidiary of Calyxt in 2010 to develop healthier food ingredients through gene editing. Based in Roseville, Minnesota, the subsidiary filed for an IPO in June, 2017.

CAR-T cancer treatment

Cellectis is

developing Development or developing may refer to: Arts *Development hell, when a project is stuck in development *Filmmaking, development phase, including finance and budgeting *Development (music), the process thematic material is reshaped * Photograph ...

“off-the-shelf” CAR T-cell treatments meant to work for any person who has certain types o
blood cancer
Most

therapies under development as of 2017 involved taking

T-cells A T cell is a type of lymphocyte. T cells are one of the important white blood cells of the immune system and play a central role in the adaptive immune response. T cells can be distinguished from other lymphocytes by the presence of a T-cell rec ...

from the person with cancer and applying

gene therapy Gene therapy is a medical field which focuses on the genetic modification of cells to produce a therapeutic effect or the treatment of disease by repairing or reconstructing defective genetic material. The first attempt at modifying human DN ...

to those cells to activate them to attack the person's cancer; an autologous cell therapy approach. Cellectis' approach starts with T-cells taken from healthy donors ( allogeneic or allograft) and modifying these base cells with gene editing to disable the gene that causes donor immune cells to attack their host (preventing

graft vs host disease Graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) is a syndrome, characterized by inflammation in different organs. GvHD is commonly associated with bone marrow transplants and stem cell transplants. White blood cells of the donor's immune system which remain wi ...

). The base cells can then be modified the same way other CAR-T therapeutics are. UCART123 is in phase 1 trials for

blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasm Blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasm (BPDCN) is a rare hematologic malignancy. It was initially regarded as a form of lymphocyte-derived cutaneous lymphoma and alternatively named CD4+CD56+ hematodermic tumor, blastic NK cell lymphoma, an ...

(BPDCN) and acute myeloid leukaemia (AML). In early September 2017, the FDA suspended Cellectis’ Phase I trials of UCART123 in the wake of the death of a BPDCN patient from

cytokine release syndrome Cytokine release syndrome (CRS) is a form of systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) that can be triggered by a variety of factors such as infections and certain drugs. It refers to cytokine storm syndromes (CSS) and occurs when large numb ...

(CRS). The FDA hold was lifted in November 2017 after reducing the dosage and with additional conditions. Cellectis also has a phase 1 trial for UCART22 in B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL) and received an IND approval from the FDA on their UCARTCS1 product candidate in

multiple myeloma Multiple myeloma (MM), also known as plasma cell myeloma and simply myeloma, is a cancer of plasma cells, a type of white blood cell that normally produces antibodies. Often, no symptoms are noticed initially. As it progresses, bone pain, an ...

Manufacturing

To manufacture its product candidates, Cellectis recently started building two manufacturing facilities - one in Paris, France, and one in Raleigh, North Carolina.

References

{{reflist Biotechnology companies of France Companies listed on Euronext Paris Biotechnology companies established in 1999 1999 establishments in France