Eterna Therapeutics Announces Initiation of Development Activities for Hypoimmune Pluripotent Cell Line for Neurology Indications Under Partnership With Lineage Cell Therapeutics

mRNA cell engineering strategically targets genes to create novel and potentially superior product profiles for cell transplant therapy applications

Novel engineered iPS cell line to be evaluated by Lineage for potential development of cell transplant therapies for central nervous system diseases under collaboration initiated in early 2023

Lineage to make milestone payments to Eterna in connection with Eterna’s successful development and delivery to Lineage of certain materials

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Sept. 06, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Eterna Therapeutics Inc. (Nasdaq: ERNA) (“Eterna”), a life science company committed to realizing the potential of mRNA cell engineering to provide patients with transformational new medicines, today announced the initiation of certain development activities to generate a novel hypoimmune induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) line under its option and license agreement (the “Agreement”) with Lineage Cell Therapeutics, Inc. (“Lineage”). This marks the next step in the strategic collaboration announced in February 2023, under which Eterna is developing innovative engineered hypoimmune iPSC lines that Lineage will evaluate for development into differentiated cell transplant therapies for central nervous system (CNS) diseases and other neurology indications.

“We are excited to move forward with the next phase of our partnership with Lineage,” said Matt Angel, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer and President of Eterna. “We believe that pluripotent cell therapies have the potential to significantly outperform traditional approaches in certain settings, and this milestone highlights Eterna’s capabilities for generating novel gene-edited iPSC lines using our mRNA cell engineering platform.”

“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. We look forward to leveraging our expertise to develop innovative cell transplant therapies that have the potential to transform the treatment of a wide range of diseases by capitalizing on the convergence of directed cell differentiation and manufacturing with modern gene-editing technology.”