Conference Day Two

Thursday | 30 November, 2023

7:50 am Coffee & Networking

8:50 am Chair’s Opening Remarks

Reviewing Real-World Clinical Data to Understand True Efficacy of Off-The-Shelf Therapies

9:00 am Infusion of an Allogeneic Non-Engrafting Cell Therapy to Enhance Initial Remission Rates in Upfront AML Treatment

  • Colleen Delaney Scientific Founder, Chief Scientific Officer and Executive VP of R&D, Deverra Therapeutics

Synopsis

  • Description of an ex vivo expanded allogeneic stem/progenitor cell product generated from pooled donor cord blood
  • Results from a phase 2 global randomized controlled trial using this product in patients with newly diagnosed AML

9:30 am Panel Discussion: Leveraging the Experience of Cord Blood Banking in Development of Cellular Therapies

  • Heather Stefanski VP Medical Services, National Marrow Donor Program® Be The Match®
  • Christina Melief Senior Scientific Advisor, National Marrow Donor Program® Be The Match®
  • Marcie Finney Executive Director, Cleveland Cord Blood Center
  • Colleen Delaney Scientific Founder, Chief Scientific Officer and Executive VP of R&D, Deverra Therapeutics

Synopsis

Along with gaining insights into how to tap into the expertise of cord blood banks and access therapy-matched cord blood units (CBUs), you’ll get a better understanding of:

  • Comprehensive benefits of cord blood as an allogeneic cell source for cellular therapy
  • Characteristics and attributes of the existing cord blood inventory
  • Importance of managing logistics for delivery of CBUs from the bank to the cell therapy developer
  • Alternative banking and attribute models that may be needed in the future to support novel therapies

10:00 am Morning Break & Group Networking

Exploring Different Cell Sources for Best-In-Class Starting Material

11:00 am Cord Blood HSCs Expanded With a Novel Molecule as a Source for Immunotherapies

  • Jesse Cotari Co-founder & Chief Scientific Officer, ImmuneBridge

Synopsis

  • Phenotypic, functional, and quantitative assessment of HSCs expanded with IBR403
  • Small scale screening, and comparability to large scale manufacturing
  • Functional qualification of NK cells derived from expanded HSCs

11:30 am Promises & Challenges of Choosing Pluripotent Stem Cells (PSCs) Lines for Future Allogeneic Cell Therapies

  • Allen Feng Founder & Chief Scientific Officer, Hebecell

Synopsis

  • PSCs Offer Sustainable Cell Source for Future Cell Therapies
  • Not all PSCs Created Equal
  • New Technologies of Generating Compliant PSCs

12:00 pm Lunch & Networking

Exploring Different Cell Sources for Best-In-Class Starting Material

1:00 pm Roundtable Discussion: Exploring Scalability Approaches for Platforms With Different Cell Source Starting Materials

Synopsis

  • Discussing the inherent challenge of scaling up for commercial manufacturing if started with a limited starting material
  • Exploring the advantages of an artificial pool of unlimited starting material such as iPSC
  • Comparing scale up potential with iPSC versus scale out potential with CAR-T, NK, PBMC and mor

1:28 pm
Rethinking Clinical Trial Design to Improve Quality of Assessed Outputs

2:00 pm Connecting Developed Assets & Pre-Clinical Platforms to Shape Early Design of Phase 2 Trials in Cancer

  • Aaron Goldman Instructor in Medicine, Director of Drug Resistance, Brigham & Women’s Hospital

Synopsis

  • Many clinical trials and cell therapies for cancer fail in early pre-clinical and clinical stages. This failure can be attributed, in part, to poor translational of the cell therapy (asset) and the patient population (trial design)
  • Here we demonstrate how human-based platforms can be leveraged to enable more successful phase II trials by the patient population and cell therapies that provide the most efficacy

2:00 pm Chairman’s Closing Remarks

2:30 pm Close of Summit