ImmunityBio Receives FDA RMAT Designation for ANKTIVA and CAR-NK for the Reversal of Lymphopenia in Patients Receiving Standard-of-Care Chemotherapy/Radiotherapy and in Treatment of Multiply Relapsed Locally Advanced or Metastatic Pancreatic Cancer

ImmunityBio, Inc. (NASDAQ: IBRX), a leading immunotherapy company, today announced the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Regenerative Medicine Advanced Therapy (RMAT) designation for ANKTIVA and CAR-NK (PD-L1 t-haNK) for the reversal of Lymphopenia in Patients Receiving Standard-of-Care Chemotherapy/Radiotherapy and in Multiply Relapsed Locally Advanced or Metastatic Pancreatic Cancer.

The complete blood count (CBC) is a standard assay widely used by oncologist to assess the status of the immune system following chemotherapy and radiation. To date, information of the cellular elements in the CBC assay provide information to the physician for the treatment of anemia, neutropenia and reduced platelet counts associated with the adverse events of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Anemia, neutropenia and reduced platelet counts can be treated with currently approved therapies, including EPOGEN, NEUPOGEN and platelet transfusion, respectively.

However, chemotherapy and radiation has also caused a reduction in the very cells necessary to kill cancer cells. This reduction in the lymphocytes by our standard of care also inhibits the induction of T cell memory in the absence of CD4+, CD8+ T cells. A treatment for the reversal of these adverse events of lymphopenia, induced by current standard-of-care, has eluded the industry for the past 50 years. ImmunityBio and its Founder Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong developed a vision over the past decades that activation and proliferation of these key lymphocytes was necessary if we were to win the war against cancer and indeed even prevent cancer in subjects at high-risk such as with lynch syndrome with a cancer vaccine. The founder’s vision reflecting the pursuit of addressing lymphopenia over the past decades will be updated in March.

“RMAT designation for ANKTIVA combined with NK cells was applied for by the Founder in the initial 2017 IND. With the clinical results of the QUILT trials across multiple tumor types from 2017 to 2024, validating the hypothesis that high-dose chemotherapy and radiation induces lymphopenia and can be reversed by ANKTIVA together with off-the-shelf CAR-NK cells (PD-L1 t-haNK) resulting in prolongation of overall survival (OS), and enabling ImmunityBio to reapply for RMAT in 2025,”¹ said Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, Founder, Executive Chairman and Global Chief Scientific & Medical Officer of ImmunityBio. “I am so grateful for the FDA to have recognized the evolution of science and the need for adoption of 21^st century medicine and cell therapy, particularly the role of NK cell therapy in our war against cancer as a universal therapy in cancer, and in the potential treatment of infectious diseases such as HIV, HPV and COVID. Today’s designation of ANKTIVA and the first CAR-NK (PD-L1 T-haNK), both first-in-class molecules to activate lymphocytes within the body (via subcutaneous injection of ANKTIVA) and via ex-vivo infusion of off-the-shelf PD-L1 NK cells, is an inflection point and a paradigm change of how we could treat patients with cancer and viral infections. The absolute lymphocyte count (ALC) which has been largely ignored by physicians, since no therapy existed to address lymphopenia, could now be both a prognostic biomarker but more importantly, the potential as a therapeutic biomarker.”