Sangamo Therapeutics (SGMO) recently announced the dosing of the first patient in a landmark trial to prevent transplanted kidney rejections, explains John McCamant, editor of The Medical Technology Stock Letter — and a participant in The MoneyShow Las Vegas on May 9-11.
Kidney transplantation is the treatment of choice for patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) who must otherwise remain on long-term dialysis.
To prevent graft rejection, transplanted patients are treated with lifelong immunosuppressive therapy, which impacts the body’s immune system and is associated with multiple side effects which can impact the function and survival of the newly transplanted kidney.
The trial is designed to evaluate TX200, a wholly-owned autologous Chimeric Antigen Receptor Regulatory T Cell (CAR-Treg) cell therapy product candidate for the prevention of immune-mediated rejection in HLA-A2 mismatched kidney transplantation from a living donor.
Through their ability to regulate the immune system, TX200 cells may protect the graft from immune-mediated rejection and reduce or eliminate the need for lifelong treatment with immunosuppressants.
The STEADFAST study forms the first step in a pipeline of CAR-Treg programs. In addition to TX200, SGMO is developing CAR-Treg cell therapy candidates in preclinical studies, including for potential use in treating multiple sclerosis and inflammatory bowel disorders.
Tamping down overactive T-cells could treat many different autoimmune disorders at the source, overactive T-cells, has significant potential to provide long term benefit without having to be treated with immunosuppressants which pose significant side effects including being immunocompromised which is even harder in the COVID era.
Tregs are one of the hottest new fields in gene editing field and Sangamo is on the forefront of this early yet revolutionary technology with TX200. The stock is a buy under $20.
