Nona Biosciences Enters into Collaboration Agreement with Umoja Biopharma to Advance In Vivo CAR-T Cell Therapies

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Sept. 13, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Nona Biosciences, a global biotechnology company providing a total solution from "Idea to IND" (I to I^TM), announced today that it has entered into a multi-target antibody discovery collaboration with Umoja Biopharma, a transformative immunotherapy company creating off-the-shelf treatments that aim to extend the reach and effectiveness of CAR-T cell therapies in oncology and autoimmunity. This collaboration leverages Nona's proprietary fully human heavy chain only antibody (HCAb) technology to produce novel in vivo generated CAR-T cell therapy drug candidates.

Fully human HCAbs have the potential to significantly reduce immunogenicity and offer versatility in CAR design due to their compact size, simplified structure, and precisely calibrated binding properties. This partnership aims to combine Nona's HCAb Harbour Mice^® platform and direct CAR-function-based HCAb library screening platform (NonaCarFx™) with Umoja's VivoVec™ platform to develop novel in vivo CAR-T cell therapies and expand the potential reach of this innovative delivery technology.

Dr. Jingsong Wang, MD, PhD, Chairman of Nona Biosciences, commented, "We are excited to collaborate with Umoja Biopharma, a pioneer in cell and gene therapy. We believe that our HCAb Harbour Mice^® technology and NonaCarFx^TM platform, alongside with our extensive experience in oncology and immunology, will empower Umoja to generate novel CAR-T cell therapies that benefit patients worldwide."

Byoung Ryu, PhD, Umoja's Executive Vice President of Discovery Research and Vector Biology added, "Nona is a great partner for Umoja as we continue to move the CAR-T cell field towards directly administrated in vivo CAR therapeutics. Nona has demonstrated capabilities for generating highly functional CAR candidates, and we look forward to developing multiple in vivo drug candidates through this partnership and ultimately, helping change outcomes for these patients."

About Nona Biosciences

Nona Biosciences is a global biotechnology company committed to cutting-edge technology innovations and providing a total solution from "Idea to IND" ("I to I^TM"), ranging from target validation and antibody discovery through preclinical research. The integrated antibody and antibody-related discovery services with multiple modalities range from antigen preparation, animal immunization, single B cell screening, to antibody lead generation and engineering, developability assessment and pharmacological evaluation, leveraging advantages of Harbour Mice platforms and the experienced therapeutic antibody discovery team.

Harbour Mice^® generates fully human monoclonal antibodies in classical two light and two heavy chain (H2L2) format, and heavy chain only (HCAb) format. Integrating Harbour Mice^® and a single B cell cloning platform, Nona Biosciences is focused on driving global inventions of transformative next-generation drugs. For more information, please visit: www.nonabio.com.

About Umoja Biopharma

Umoja Biopharma, Inc. is a clinical-stage biotechnology company aiming to develop off-the-shelf therapeutics that improve the reach, effectiveness, and access of CAR-T cell therapies in both oncology and autoimmunity. Umoja's VivoVec^TM in vivo gene delivery technology empowers a patient's own immune system to fight disease. Enabling its core technology is Umoja's state-of-the-art lentiviral vector development and manufacturing facility in Louisville, Colorado. Umoja believes its approach can provide broader access and improved effectiveness of the most advanced immunotherapies, enabling more patients to live better, fuller lives. To learn more, please visit http://umoja-biopharma.com/.