Lentigen’s trispecific CAR Ts; plus a bispecific antiviral COVID-19 mAb, Wild Biotech, Kancera and more

Researchers from Miltenyi Biotec GmbH’s Lentigen unit created trispecific CAR T cells, dubbed duoCAR T cells, directed against CD19, CD20 and CD22 that eliminated antigen-heterogeneous B cell tumors in mice.  The duoCARs in the cell therapy, described in Science Translational Medicine, consist of a bispecific anti-CD19 and anti-CD20 CAR that is linked by a self-cleaving peptide to a CD22-binding CAR.

Bispecific mAb neutralizes SARS-CoV-2 variants
A bispecific mAb dubbed CoV-X2 that binds two SARS-CoV-2 epitopes, both in the spike receptor-binding domain, neutralized the P.1 and B.1.351 variants first detected in Brazil and South Africa with IC₅₀ values of 1.2 and12 nM, respectively. The IC₅₀ value against the B.1.1.7 variant first identified in the U.K. and an older variant was 0.2 nM. The mAb — developed by scientists from the Institute for Research in Biomedicine in Bellinzona, which is affiliated with Università della Svizzera Italiana, and Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and reported in Nature — also sped viral clearance and reduced weight loss in mice infected with SARS-CoV-2...