VERAXA Biotech (NASDAQ: VRXA) announced the initiation of cell line development for its lead BiTAC(R) T-cell engager program through a collaboration with ATUM. The partnership will apply ATUM's Leap-In Transposase(R) technology to generate stable clonal cell lines supporting IND/CTA-enabling activities and future clinical development. This milestone follows encouraging preclinical data presented at the 2026 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting.
The BiTAC-TCE platform, developed by VERAXA, is designed to improve tumor selectivity by splitting the T-cell engager into two complementary precursors that activate only when both bind separate tumor targets on the same cell. This conditional 'AND'-gated approach could reduce off-tumor toxicity associated with conventional T-cell engagers while maintaining anti-cancer activity, potentially enabling higher dosing and a broader therapeutic window.
The collaboration with ATUM is intended to support CMC development, including early process, analytical and formulation development, as well as the production of material for nonclinical studies. VERAXA believes this approach could address key limitations of current T-cell engager therapies.
For more details, the full press release is available at https://ibn.fm/FCIlk. VERAXA Biotech is building a premier engine for the discovery and development of next-generation antibody-based therapeutics, including bispecific T cell engagers, bispecific ADCs and other innovative formats. The company was founded on scientific breakthroughs made at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL).
BiTAC(R) is a registered trademark of VERAXA Biotech GmbH. For the latest news and updates relating to VRXA, visit the company’s newsroom at https://ibn.fm/VRXA. This announcement underscores VERAXA's progress in advancing its pipeline of proprietary BiTAC formats toward clinical development.
