Quell Therapeutics, a UCL spinout that develops cell engineering technology to treat autoimmune diseases, is to collaborate with biopharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca in a deal worth over $2billion (£1.6bn).
Quell Therapeutics is a biotechnology company that develops T regulatory (Treg) engineering cell therapies. It was founded and spun out in 2019 by BRC III theme director Professor Emma Morris and Professor Hans Stauss (both at UCL Institute of Immunity & Transplantation), in partnership with leading experts in Treg cell therapies, cell engineering, solid organ transplantation and autoimmune diseases from King’s College London and Hannover Medical School in Germany.
Tregs are a type of T cell, white blood cells that have a strong immune-suppressive capacity, providing a regulatory function in the body. Quell’s technology can genetically engineer Tregs to reduce an overactive immune response linked to disease.
Through the partnership, experts will target type-1 diabetes and inflammatory bowel disease. Quell also plans to start a clinical trial later this year of a cell therapy designed to prevent rejection of liver transplants.
Professor Morris said: “The therapies we have developed are predicted to generate long-term benefits for patients with the potential to be life-changing and in some cases life-saving. The partnership between Quell and AstraZeneca will mean more patients benefit from these treatments sooner.”
Professor Geraint Rees, Vice-Provost (UCL Research, Innovation & Global Engagement), said: “Quell Therapeutics’ success in securing this major partnership demonstrates the strength of UCL’s and the UK’s commercialisation ecosystem, allowing academic entrepreneurs to develop and commercialise their expert innovation.
“This partnership with AstraZeneca takes Quell a step closer towards developing life-changing treatments for patients with type-1 diabetes and bowel disease, with more in the long-term future.”
Iain McGill, Quell Therapeutics CEO, said: “Collaboration with AstraZeneca, our first major partner, will accelerate the application of our Treg platform in autoimmune diseases, where we believe there is a broad opportunity to reset immune tolerance and drive durable responses for patients.”
Mene Pangalos, Head of Biopharmaceuticals R&D at AstraZeneca, said: “We are moving in a big way into cell therapies outside oncology, where they have been remarkably effective for treating some cancers.”
Quell’s engineering process works by removing a patient’s Tregs and making genetic changes so that they act only on specific tissues without suppressing the whole immune system. They are then infused back into the patient’s bloodstream.
In type-1 diabetes, which typically begins early in life, the Tregs would be engineered to stop the immune attack on insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas, which causes the disease. Treatment would need to happen before patients lose all their insulin-producing cells in order to prevent further attack.
