In this episode of The Onco’Zine Brief Peter Hofland talks with Pascal Touchon, President, Chief Executive Officer, and member of the Board of Directors Atara Biotherapeutics.

With more than 30 years of global biopharmaceutical leadership experience, Pascal Touchon has committed his career to transform the lives of patients with serious medical conditions.

Before joining Atara Biotherapeutics Dr. Touchon was Global Head, Cell & Gene and member of the Oncology Executive Committee at Novartis Oncology, where he was responsible for the global launch of Novartis’ CAR T-cell drug and expanded global CAR T-cell manufacturing and technical operations.

Now, at Atara Biotherapeutics, Dr. Touchon guides the company in developing the next-generation of off-the-shelf CAR T-cell immunotherapies, using a technology platform that makes it possible to manufacture a T-cell library in advance of a patient’s specific medical needs.

The company is developing a host of potentially transformative T-cell immunotherapies for cancer, autoimmune, and viral diseases, using Epstein-Barr Virus T-Cells from donors with a healthy immune function.

Epstein-Barr Virus is associated with a wide range of hematological malignancies and solid tumors, as well as certain autoimmune conditions such as multiple sclerosis.

Among the novel therapies the company is developing, is ATA3271, a next-generation, off-the-shelf, allogeneic Epstein-Barr Virus CAR T-cell therapy targeting mesothelin, a cell surface antigen that is strongly expressed in mesothelial cells and is highly expressed in pancreatic cancers, ovarian cancers, mesotheliomas, and some other cancers.

The investigational drug is designed for the treatment of solid tumors.

Earlier this year, during the 35th annual meeting of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) the company presented favorable findings from in vitro and in vivo evaluation of ATA3271

During the upcoming 62nd Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), being held virtually from December 5th through 8th this year, pre-clinical data of another investigational agent, ATA3219, will be presented.

The available data shows that ATA3219 demonstrates efficient targeting of CD19-expressing tumor cells, both in vitro and in vivo

In the interview today, originally recorded in June 2020, Hofland and Touchon talk about the company and the transformative therapies being developed for patients diagnosed with solid tumors, hematologic cancers, and autoimmune disease.

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