Cellectis Presents Breakthrough in Fight against Cancer at ESGCT Congress

Regulatory News:

Cancer is characterized by the proliferation of certain abnormally-behaved cells in a person’s body. The immune system, whose role is to defend the body against “foreign invaders” such as viruses and bacteria, has difficulty identifying these cancerous cells as hostile.

Cellectis’s highly innovative approach involves isolating cells from the immune systems of healthy patients and genetically programming them to attack cancer cells in sick patients. The immune cells thus “armed” could be produced industrially, making it possible to treat many patients rather than just one.

The results presented by Dr. Andrew Scharenberg at the ESGCT congress establish proof of concept for this protocol, leading to some especially promising possibilities in the treatment of certain cancers such as prostate cancer, leukemia, non-small-cell lung cancer (80% of cases) and glioblastomas.

Non-clinical proof of concept is planned for the end of 2012. The results of this step will be made known in the first half of 2013. The first human clinical trial is planned for late 2014.

According to Dr. Andrew Scharenberg, Chief Scientific Officer of Cellectis therapeutics,

André Choulika, Chief Executive Officer of Cellectis, added: ".”

Founded in France in 1999, the Cellectis Group is based on highly specific DNA engineering technologies. Its application sectors are human health, agriculture and bioenergies. Co-created by André Choulika, its Chief Executive Officer, Cellectis is today one of the world leading companies in the field of genome engineering. The Group has a workforce of 230 employees working on 5 sites worldwide: Paris & Evry in France, Gothenburg in Sweden, St Paul (Minnesota) & Cambridge (Massachusetts) in the United States. Cellectis achieved revenues of €16M in 2011 and has since its inception has signed more than 80 industrial agreements with pharmaceutical, agrochemical, and biotechnology companies. AFM, DuPont, BASF, Bayer, Total, Limagrain, and Novo Nordisk are some of the Group’s clients and partners.

Since 2007, Cellectis has been listed on NYSE-Euronext Alternext market (code: ALCLS) in Paris. For more information, visit our website:

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