Shanghai Vitalgen BioPharma Co. Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Vitalgen") and GRIT Biotechnology Co. Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "GRIT") jointly announced today that an agreement has been reached for GRIT to use Vitalgen's AaCas12b^Max gene editing tool and its related technologies to develop, manufacture and commercialize GRIT's cell therapy products. Vitalgen will provide its technical know-hows and screening expertise to assist GRIT to efficiently identify, optimize and develop its cell therapy products. This collaboration and licensing agreement includes an upfront payment, milestone payments, and sales commissions etc.

As the first external licensing and collaboration deal signed for Vitalgen's ViCas^®CRISPR gene editing technology platform containing AaCas12b^Max, this collaboration represents a great opportunity to showcase and broaden the application of AaCas12b^Max as a versatile gene editing tool to develop effective cell and gene therapies. 

About CRISPR-AaCas12b^MAX

Professor Li Wei, the scientific founder of Vitalgen, discovered and reported in 2018 that Cas12b is a new class of mammalian cell CRISPR-Cas gene editing tool, in addition to the earlier discovered Cas9 and Cas12a. Upon extensive engineering and optimization, the resulting AaCas12b^Max shows excellent on-target vs. off-target profile. Vitalgen has an exclusive licensing agreement with Professor Li Wei's Institute to use and apply AaCas12b^Max in cell and gene therapies.

Vitalgen has built a comprehensive patent portfolio around the applications of AaCas12b^Max and has also acquired extensive knowledge and technical know-hows to apply AaCas12b^Max in a broad spectrum of drug discovery applications, including in vivo and ex vivo applications where AaCas12b^Max is delivered as DNA, mRNA or protein. In a variety of applications, AaCas12b^Max routinely exhibited excellent on-target editing efficiency with minimum or undetectable off-target editing, consistently out-performing some of the most frequently used CRISPR-Cas editing tools.

In addition to AaCas12b^Max, Vitalgen has established its ViCas^®CRISPR editing technology platform with additional gene editor intellectual property rights acquired from Professor Li's Institute, including VG-Cas12i^Max, VG-Cas12i^HiFi and other DNA and RNA editors which recognize distinct PAM sequences and require unique gRNA scaffolds and modifications. To support the clinical development when using the ViCas^®CRISPR editors, GMP grade high-activity editor recombinant Cas12 proteins have been manufactured and are commercially available through an exclusive 3rd party collaborator. In addition, technology and technical know-hows for applications using mRNA editor delivered by LNP have been extensively evaluated and optimized, with non-human primate data generated for PoC.

About GRIT Biotechnology

Established in 2019, GRIT Biotechnology is a China-based biotechnology company specializing in tumor immune cell therapy, with its main focus on TIL cell therapies. GRIT Biotechnology has received multiple rounds of equity financing from a number of well-known venture capital funds in China and abroad.

As the first TIL therapy approved for clinical study in China, GRIT's most advanced program GT101 injection is currently in the pivotal phase 2 clinical trial. In addition, GT201 injection, the world's first membrane-bound IL-15 complex-edited TIL product, has completed IND applications in US and China. GRIT has developed a series of next generation of edited TIL therapies based on its core R&D platforms, including the StemTexp^® stem-like TIL proliferation technology, the StaViral^® stable viral transfected cell line generation process, ImmuT Finder^® immune regulatory target discovery platform, and the KOReTIL^® high efficiency gene knockout system. With industrial leading technologies and resources, GRIT Biotechnology is committed to developing innovated solid tumor cell therapies to offer new hope for cancer patients without effective treatment options.