Event report: Cellectis R&D/ Analyst Day

September 16, 2014 — Paris (France) — Cellectis (Alternext: ALCLS.PA), a leader in the development of adoptive immunotherapies based on engineered allogeneic CART cells (UCART) has hosted an R&D/ Analyst Day on September 11 in New York City.

This meeting was intended to explain shareholders and investors Cellectis’ research and development. More than 100 people attended that public event at which Cellectis’ scientists provided an overview of the Company's therapeutic innovations with feature presentations by key opinion leaders: Pr. Laurence Cooper, MD Anderson Cancer Center; Dr. Jaume Pons Senior Vice President and CSO of Rinat, the biotech unit of Pfizer and Eric Falcand, Director, Alliance Management & US Licenses at Servier. The meeting started at 8:00 a.m. and ended after a Q&A session at noon.

Summary of the event

After a welcoming remarks by Dr. André Choulika, Ph.D., Chairman and CEO of Cellectis, the meeting opened with a keynote address by Pr. Laurence Cooper, MD, Ph.D., University of Texas, MD Anderson Cancer Center, who discussed the clinical and economic benefits of immuno-oncology area and demonstrated the apparent benefits of an allogeneic approach to undertake off-the-shelf T-cell therapy for patients.

Dr. Philippe Duchateau, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer, then presented the Company’s skills and know-hows, Dr. Julien Valton, Ph.D., Innovation Project Leader, explained how Cellectis has fully matured TALENTM technology that is considered as one of the most precise, efficient and the safest genome editing method today.

Dr. Laurent Poirot, Ph.D., Head of Early Discovery, highlighted how Cellectis has developed unmatched capabilities for engineering T cells to fit the therapeutics needs of multiple cancer indications and how traits can be built into T cells to overcome tumor immune evasion.

Dr. Jaume Pons, Ph.D., Senior Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer of Rinat, the biotech unit of Pfizer, described Cellectis and Rinat/Pfizer’s partnership as a scientific and cultural match aiming to produce ‘Off-the-Shelf’ therapies.

Dr. Alexandre Juillerat, Ph.D., Project Leader, detailed Cellectis’ CAR architecture, the multichain CAR (mcCAR), able to exhibit an anti-tumor activity that is indistinguishable from the single chain CAR in vitro and in vivo. He demonstrated that Cellectis mcCAR scaffold extends the engineering possibilities and constitutes a step forward for targeting solid tumors.

Dr. Julianne Smith, Ph.D., Vice President CART Development, presented Cellectis’ first two “off the shelf” T-cell products: UCART19 (partnered with Servier) and UCART123, from its proprietary platform of adoptive cancer immunotherapy, deployable on a large scale for different oncology indications.

Eric Falcand, Director, Alliance Management & US Licenses at Servier, described Cellectis/Servier’s collaboration as a win-win partnership allowing Cellectis to structure itself in various domains and successfully develop products and Servier to access to innovative technologies in line with its strategy to answer unmet medical needs in oncology.

Stéphan Reynier, Eng., MSc., Chief Regulatory and Compliance Officer, detailed Cellectis’ CART cell manufacturing platform and explained the Company’s CMC (Chemistry, Manufacturing, Controls) and Regulatory strategies for CART cell adoptive immunotherapy.

Dr. Mathieu Simon, MD, Executive Vice President, closed the meeting by giving future perspectives for Cellectis’ allogeneic technology. He explained why Cellectis poised to be a major player in immuno-oncology according to its “best in class” science, its hybrid development model, its own product portfolio and its deployment in the USA.