NIH Grants $2M to Marker Therapeutics for MT-601 Lymphoma Study

 The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program has awarded a $2 million grant to clinical-stage immuno-oncology company Marker Therapeutics to support the clinical investigation of MT-601 in patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma who have relapsed after anti-CD19 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy. Preliminary clinical and non-clinical evidence indicating MT-601's anti-tumor effectiveness on anti-CD19 CAR-resistant lymphoma cells serve as the foundation for the award. The money raised will go towards funding the national multi-center Phase 1 APOLLO research, which will assess the safety and effectiveness of MT-601, a T cell product specific to multiple tumour associated antigens (multiTAAs), in patients with recurrent NHL, including those who have already received anti-CD19 CAR-T cell treatment.

The president and CEO of Marker Therapeutics, Juan Vera, expressed his happiness with the SBIR funding, noting that after receiving CD19-targeting CAR-T cells, 40–60% of patients would relapse within the first year of therapy. The decision indicates the potential scientific quality and Marker's APOLLO study's ability to address an unmet medical need. The NIH award procedure is extremely competitive.

The objective responses shown in all three research subjects treated at City of Hope, together with the absence of immunological effector cell associated neurotoxicity syndrome (ICANS) or cytokine release syndrome (CRS), are encouraging to Marker Therapeutics. With the non-dilutive funding assistance from NIH, they look forward to treating more patients in this Phase 1 trial.