After axing a wide swath of federal research projects and grants, a recent slew of awards offers a glimpse into the kinds of science the second Trump administration wants to back: in vivo cell therapies.
One of the grant winners is a newly emerged biotech called immunoVec, which debuted Oct. 8 with up to $40.7 million in funding from the federal government. The Los Angeles-based company is developing polymeric nanoparticles to deliver DNA to cells, which immunoVec says offers key advantages over viral vectors, lipid nanoparticles or mRNA payloads.
The biotech is tackling autoimmune disorders in collaboration with Johns Hopkins University, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and other unnamed U.S. institutions, according to a company release.
The new funding comes from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), which has unveiled grant awardees for its Engineering of Immune Cells Inside the Body (EMBODY) program. ARPA-H was founded under the Biden administration in 2022, with the EMBODY initiative launching in April 2024.
While ImmunoVec is skirting RNA in its efforts to reprogram immune cells, other awardees are fully embracing the technology even after Trump's administration scrapped $500 million in mRNA vaccine funding from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority.
Kernal Bio and three other sub-awardees were granted up to $48 million to advance an in vivo mRNA-encoded CAR T-cell program, while Tessera Therapeutics netted up to $41.3 million for its gene editing platform, which uses a lipid nanoparticle to deliver an RNA-based “gene writer” that can edit or insert DNA into the genome. Tessera plans to use its tech to bestow T cells with the ability to fight cancer and autoimmune disease.
“We are honored to receive this support from ARPA-H to develop the next generation of immunotherapies,” Michael Holmes, Ph.D., chief scientific officer of Tessera Therapeutics, said in an Oct. 8 release. “This work builds on the progress we’ve made using our gene writing and delivery platforms to engineer T cells in vivo and has the potential to dramatically improve the accessibility, safety and scalability of currently available CAR-T therapies.”
Another awardee, Cytiva, is also pursuing innovative CAR-T therapies for cancer, using a lipid nanoparticle to deliver CRISPR gene editors to immune cells. Cytiva is a subsidiary of the Danaher Corporation and will collaborate in its ARPA-H project with other Danaher companies Integrated DNA Technologies and Aldevron as well as academic institutions such as the University of California, Berkeley’s Innovative Genomics Institute (IGI).
These partners were part of the team that designed a custom CRISPR therapy for KJ Muldoon, a baby born with a rare metabolic disease, earlier this year.
“This collaboration represents a bold step toward realizing the full potential of gene editing to treat cancer in a precise, personalized, and scalable way,” Fyodor Urnov, Ph.D., director of technology and translation at the IGI, said in Cytiva’s Oct. 7 release. “We have an Avengers-like team across academia, industry and government that aims to develop a first-in-class injectable gene editor to potentially reprogram a patient’s immune system to home in on and eradicate the cancer.”
Their awards come amid challenging market conditions, with both Cytiva and Flagship Pioneering-backed Tessera conducting layoffs earlier this year.
Instead of CAR-T, immunoVec plans to use its technology to develop in vivo natural killer cell therapies, according to their release, which can then destroy rogue B cells that cause autoimmune diseases. Other companies, like Nkarta, are also pursuing CAR-NK treatments for B-cell diseases, though with cells edited in a lab rather than within a patient’s body.
Big Pharma has also taken a keen interest in in vivo cell therapies recently, with many acquisitions closing this year. AstraZeneca bought out EsoBiotech for $1 billion in March; AbbVie paid $2.1 billion for Capstan Therapeutics in June; and Gilead Sciences' Kite Pharma paid $350 million for Interius BioTherapeutics in August.