Wexford–based Coeptis, a biopharmaceutical and technology company, recently signed an exclusive licensing agreement with VyGen-Bio, a global biopharmaceutical company, for the worldwide development and commercialization rights to the Gene Edited Antibody Resistant (GEAR) Cell Therapy Platform.
“This expanded ownership of the GEAR technology is a major achievement for COEPTIS,” Dave Mehalick, Coeptis CEO, said. “The market potential of GEAR is extensive and is driven by therapeutic need. GEAR, integrated into our allogeneic cellular immunotherapy platform, has the potential to provide a beneficial, cost-effective therapeutic option available to all patients in need.”
GEAR natural killer cells (NK) cells are being developed to fight cancer. GEAR-NK allows for modified NK cells to be co-administered with targeted monoclonal antibodies. Therapies using the antibodies would otherwise neutralized or eradicated the NK cells as both NK cells and malignant cells share a common receptor.
Coeptis previously held limited co-development rights to GEAR and created a majority-owned subsidiary, GEAR Therapeutics, to advance GEAR-based cell therapy. The goal is to conduct
Human studies to evaluate GEAR-NK for the treatment of a broad range of cancers and other therapies.
COEPTIS and its subsidiaries Coeptis Pharmaceuticals, GEAR Therapeutics, SNAP Biosciences, and Coeptis Technologies develop innovative cell therapy platforms for autoimmune and infectious diseases, and cancer.