Lineage Cell in pact to discover iPSC line in deal with Eterna

Lineage Cell Therapeutics announced the initiation of certain development activities to generate a novel hypoimmune induced pluripotent stem cell or iPSC, line under the Company’s exclusive option and license agreement with Eterna Therapeutics. This marks the next step under the strategic collaboration announced in February 2023, under which Eterna is developing innovative engineered hypoimmune iPSC lines that Lineage will evaluate for differentiation into cell transplant product candidates for central nervous system CNS diseases and other neurology indications. Since announcing the deal earlier this year, Lineage has evaluated its development strategy with a group of leading neurology experts in the U.S. and abroad. As a result of these and other discussions, and an assessment of the competitive landscape, Lineage finalized its selection of specific gene edits for the initial cell lines to be developed by Eterna…Lineage expects that these edits would expand the edited cell lines’ overall utility, including for non-immune privileged or non-human leukocyte antigen matched indications and will further differentiate the cell line from others currently in use by competitors. “Our partnership with Eterna reflects an important step in a corporate strategy intended to capitalize on our existing process development capabilities by combining them with cutting-edge cell engineering and editing technologies, to create novel and potentially superior product profiles,” stated Brian M. Culley, Chief Executive Officer of Lineage. “This collaboration reflects our effort to broaden the application of our cell therapy platform and our plans for future success in this growing field. ..The Agreement provides Lineage an option to obtain an exclusive license to utilize and sublicense the novel gene-edited cell lines developed by Eterna for preclinical, clinical, and commercial purposes in the field of CNS diseases. Eterna is the exclusive licensee of the key intellectual property underlying this collaboration from its discovery partner Factor Bioscience.