Affimed Presents Preclinical Data Showing that Addition of an Innate Cell Engager to NK and CAR-NK Cells Improves Tumor Cytotoxicity of Both Cell Types at the 38th Annual Meeting of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer

• Addition of Affimed’s innate cell engager (ICE) improves cytotoxicity of natural killer (NK) cells and CAR-NK cells
• NK cells with ICE show at least comparable anti-tumor cell efficacy to CAR-NK cells with ICE
• ICE combined with NK cells obviate the need for complex and costly manufacturing compared to CAR-NK cells
• ICE offer flexibility to be used with NK cells from different sources

MANNHEIM, Germany, Nov. 03, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Affimed N.V. (Nasdaq: AFMD) (“Affimed”, or the “Company”), a clinical-stage immuno-oncology company committed to giving patients back their innate ability to fight cancer, today presented a poster at the annual meeting of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC), indicating the Company’s ICE improves cytotoxicity of NK and CAR-NK cells and that NK cells redirected by ICE exhibit at least the same efficacy against tumor cells as CAR-NK cells alone or redirected by the ICE. The results emerged from a collaboration with the Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology (IZI) in Leipzig, Germany.

“This is the first direct comparison of NK cells redirected by Affimed’s ICE with CAR-NK cells,” said Dr. Arndt Schottelius, Chief Scientific Officer at Affimed. “It is exciting to see that the combination of NK cells with ICE exhibits an anti-tumoral efficacy which is at least comparable to that of CAR-NK cells. The combination of allogeneic NK cells with ICE molecules represents the most straightforward way to generate potent and targeted NK cells. This suggests high flexibility and cost-effective manufacturing as there is no additional engineering of NK cells required.”

To compare approaches, the preclinical efficacy of NK cells combined with a tetravalent bispecific CD16A/CD19-targeting ICE against CD19-positive tumor cells was compared to the efficacy of anti-CD19 CAR-NK cells alone or in combination with the ICE. Cytotoxic activation was assessed by calcein-release assays, degranulation, cytokine secretion, and specific CD19-positive target cell killing.

The combination of the ICE molecule with NK cells or CAR-NK cells enhanced antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC) against tumor cells and mediated elevated levels of degranulation when compared to NK cells or CAR-NK cells alone.

In conclusion, the combination of NK cells with ICE represents a straight-forward way to potently target and activate NK cells.

Details of the poster presentation are as follows: