“PBCAR269A is our third off-the-shelf CAR T candidate to advance into the clinic; the second within the last two months. Despite the uncertain impact of COVID-19 on patients and the healthcare community at large, we maintained our focus and dedication that have enabled continued execution during the pandemic,” commented Matt Kane, CEO and co-founder of Precision Biosciences. “Notably, this will be our first study for which all clinical trial material will be produced at our in-house manufacturing facility.”

“There remains significant unmet need for a broadly available and well-tolerated treatment for patients with relapsed or refractory Multiple Myeloma,” said Chris Heery, MD, Chief Medical Officer of Precision BioSciences. “We are committed to improving the access of CAR T therapies for more patients. We appreciate the commitment of our clinical sites to start enrollment ahead of schedule, even during these difficult times, and the willingness of patients to take part in this trial.”

In preclinical disease models, PBCAR269A demonstrated potent in vivo clearance of BCMA+ tumor cells and overall tumor volume reduction, with no evidence of graft-versus-host disease (GVHD). Clinical trial material for this study is generated at the Company’s in-house Manufacturing Center for Advanced Therapeutics (MCAT) in Durham, North Carolina. PBCAR269A has received Orphan Drug Designation from the FDA for the treatment of multiple myeloma.

About the PBCAR269A Clinical Trial
PBCAR269A is being evaluated in a Phase 1/2a multicenter, nonrandomized, open-label, parallel assignment, single-dose, dose-escalation, and dose-expansion study to evaluate the safety and clinical activity of PBCAR269A in adults with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma. The starting dose of PBCAR269A will be 6 x 10⁵ CAR T cells/kg body weight. Subsequent cohorts will be treated with escalating doses to a maximum dose of 6 x 10⁶ CAR T cells/kg body weight. The trial will be conducted at multiple U.S. sites. For more information, visit www.clinicaltrials.gov, study identifier number NCT04171843.

About Precision’s Allogeneic CAR T Platform
Precision is advancing a pipeline of cell-phenotype optimized allogeneic CAR T therapies, leveraging fully-scaled, proprietary manufacturing processes. The platform is designed to maximize the number of patients who can potentially benefit from CAR T therapy. Precision carefully selects high-quality T cells derived from healthy donors as starting material, then utilizes its unique ARCUS genome editing technology to modify the cells via a single-step engineering process. By inserting the CAR gene at the T cell receptor (TCR) locus, this process knocks in the CAR while knocking out the TCR, creating a consistent product that can be reliably and rapidly manufactured and is designed to prevent graft-versus-host disease. Precision optimizes its CAR T therapy candidates for immune cell expansion in the body by maintaining a high proportion of naïve and central memory CAR T cells throughout the manufacturing process and in the final product.

About Precision BioSciences, Inc.
Precision BioSciences, Inc. is a clinical-stage biotechnology company dedicated to improving life (DTIL) with its novel and proprietary ARCUS^® genome editing platform. ARCUS is a highly specific and versatile genome editing platform that was designed with therapeutic safety, delivery, and control in mind. Using ARCUS, the Company’s pipeline consists of multiple “off-the-shelf” CAR T immunotherapy clinical candidates and several in vivo gene correction therapy candidates to cure genetic and infectious diseases where no adequate treatments exist. Elo Life Systems is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Precision BioSciences also using ARCUS to benefit human health and wellness with novel food products that enhance the nutrition and diversity of global food supply. For more information about Precision BioSciences please visit www.precisionbiosciences.com.

About IonQ

We’re building the world’s best quantum computers to solve the world’s hardest problems.

We believe useful quantum computers will look as different from the laptops and smartphones we use every day as classical computers appear next to an abacus. And we believe the best way to build a quantum computer is by starting with nature’s qubit: the atom. Accurate, powerful, and flexible, ionized atoms are the heart of our quantum systems.

After decades of research, IonQ was founded in 2015 by Chris Monroe and Jungsang Kim with $2 million in seed funding from New Enterprise Associates, a license to core technology from the University of Maryland and Duke University, and the goal of taking trapped ion quantum computing out of the lab and into the market. The next year, we raised an additional $20 million from GV, Amazon Web Services, and NEA, and built two of the world’s most accurate quantum computers.