Preclinical Evidence of an Allogeneic Dual CD20xCD22 CAR to Target a Broad Spectrum of Patients with B-cell Malignancies

Abstract

Despite the remarkable success of autologous chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells, some patients relapse due to tumor antigen escape and low or uneven antigen expression, among other mechanisms. Therapeutic options after relapse are limited, emphasizing the need to optimize current approaches. In addition, there is a need to develop allogeneic "off-the-shelf" therapies from healthy donors that are readily available at the time of treatment decision and can overcome limitations of current autologous approaches. To address both challenges simultaneously, we generated a CD20xCD22 dual allogeneic CAR T cell. Herein, we demonstrate that allogeneic CD20x22 CAR T cells display robust, sustained and dose-dependent activity in vitro and in vivo, while efficiently targeting primary B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma (B-NHL) samples with heterogeneous levels of CD22 and CD20. Altogether, we provide preclinical proof-of-concept data for an allogeneic dual CAR T cell to overcome current mechanisms of resistance to CAR T-cell therapies in B-NHL, while providing a potential alternative to CD19 targeting.