ReNeuron Group plc

("ReNeuron" or the "Company")

Collaboration agreement with UCL

ReNeuron collaborates with UCL to generate anti-cancer immune cells for cancer therapies

ReNeuron Group plc (AIM: RENE), a global leader in the development of cell-based therapeutics, announces that it has entered a collaboration agreement with University College London ('UCL') to conduct research into the generation of immune cells from induced pluripotent stem cells ('iPSCs') for anti-cancer cell therapies. ReNeuron will be working alongside Dr Claire Roddie, Associate Professor, UCL Cancer Institute, and the team at the UCL CAR-T cell cancer therapy programme.

ReNeuron will be providing UCL with iPSCs from its CTX immortalised neural progenitor cell line to be assessed for their ability to differentiate into functional T cells and natural killer ('NK') cells. If this first objective is met, the CTX-iPSC cell line will be further used to generate chimeric antigen receptors ('CAR') T cells and/or CAR-NK cells. CARs allow T and NK cells to target receptors present on the surface of cancer cells, allowing them to recognise and specifically kill tumour cells. Dr Roddie and her team have extensive expertise in generating CAR cells and both groups will work collaboratively to generate haematopoietic stem cells, lymphoid progenitors and cytotoxic T cells from the CTX-iPSCs.

Induced pluripotent stem cells can differentiate into any cell type found in the body, but unlike most iPSCs, ReNeuron's proprietary CTX-iPSCs carry the conditional immortalisation system incorporated into CTX. ReNeuron's CTX derived iPSC's are available as clinical grade material potentially allowing faster development of arising therapeutics and the Company believes that its conditional immortalisation technology could allow the company to manufacture cost efficiently at scale to treat large numbers of patients providing 'off the shelf' cell therapies.

Advanced cellular therapeutics for cancer is a rapidly growing area of interest in the oncology space and ReNeuron's aim is to expand and bank lymphoid progenitor cells, demonstrate the feasibility of transfecting them with CAR-carrying viruses, further differentiate them to NK or cytotoxic T cells and then apply them as anti-cancer cell therapeutics in certain preclinical cancer models. This would enable ReNeuron to establish further alliances and partnerships in this exciting area of cancer therapeutics. 

Dr Claire Roddie, Associate Professor, UCL Cancer Institute, commented: "We are excited to work with ReNeuron to develop universal CAR approaches using their clinical grade CTX-iPSC lines. If preclinical testing is successful, we would hope to move towards clinical studies."

Dr. Stefano Pluchino, Chief Scientific Officer of ReNeuron, commented: "We are very much looking forward to working with Dr Roddie and her team at UCL in this exciting and rapidly growing research space. This collaboration is another strong development for ReNeuron which demonstrates the uniqueness and strong translational potential of our proprietary iPSC technology platform and will allow us to further expand into the oncology space. If this initial research is successful, significantly large numbers of cancer patients can be treated with next generation alternate cancer therapies."

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About ReNeuron

ReNeuron is a global leader in cell-based therapeutics, harnessing its unique stem cell technologies to develop 'off the shelf' stem cell treatments for disease with significant unmet needs. The Company's lead cell therapy candidate is in clinical development for the blindness-causing disease, retinitis pigmentosa.

ReNeuron is also advancing its proprietary exosome technology platform as a potential delivery system for drugs that treat diseases of the central nervous system and other disorders. The Company also has the ability through its conditionally immortalised induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) platform to make allogeneic tissue cells of choice; in-house programmes are currently focused on treatments for blood cancers and diabetes.

ReNeuron's shares are traded on the London AIM market under the symbol RENE.L. For further information visit www.reneuron.com