Gaithersburg, MD, November 5, 2019 – Cartesian Therapeutics, a fully integrated, clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing cell and gene therapies for cancer and autoimmune diseases, today announced that it has initiated a Phase 1/2 clinical trial (NCT04146051) of its lead CAR-T candidate, Descartes-08, in patients with generalized myasthenia gravis (GMG). To the company’s knowledge, the program is the first CAR-T investigational candidate to enter clinical development for an autoimmune disease.
“Patients with severe GMG have limited treatment options and are often dependent on nonselective, chronic immunosuppressive therapies (ISTs) that have long-term toxicities,” said Volkan Granit, MD, the trial’s principal investigator and Assistant Professor of Neurology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. “Cartesian’s CAR-T technology selectively targets the primary culprit in the disease: antibody-producing plasma cells. Such selective targeting would be a first in GMG and could help patients discontinue use of chronic ISTs.”