During the second quarter, Zelluna moved from preclinical to clinical-stage execution, dosing its first patient with ZI-MA4-1 in July, followed by favourable safety data that cleared the study to continue enrolment. The period also brought NOK 58.2 million in financing, a NOK 16 million research grant, and expansion of the trial to two UK clinical sites.
Zelluna develops allogeneic, “off-the-shelf” cell therapies for solid tumours, using cells from healthy donors rather than each patient’s own cells. Its lead candidate, ZI-MA4-1, combines T cell receptors engineered to recognise the cancer marker MAGE-A4 with natural killer cells that carry out the tumour cell killing. ZI-MA4-1 is the first MAGE-A4-targeting TCR-NK therapy to enter clinical testing anywhere and is currently being evaluated in the phase I ZIMA-101 trial in the UK.
CEO Namir Hassan stated: “It was a very special moment, both professionally and personally. To have been part of the journey of taking that idea, building a platform around it, developing ZI-MA4-1 and ultimately seeing it reach the first patient was incredibly special.”