Autolus Therapeutics, a London-headquartered clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) therapies with a semi-automated manufacturing process, has filed a registration statement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for a proposed initial public offering (IPO) of $100 million.

Autolus is a spin-out company from the University College London (UCL). It was founded by the company’s current Chief Scientific Officer and Senior Vice President, Dr. Martin Pule, Clinical Senior Lecturer in the Department of Hematology at UCL Cancer Institute and Honorary Consultant in Hematology at the University College London Hospital.

Autolus’ clinical-stage pipeline comprises five programs being developed in six hematological and solid-tumor indications. It expects to complete the proof-of-concept phases of four Phase I/II clinical trials in hematological cancer indications by early 2019.

The company is developing programmed T-cell therapies for treating cancer for commercial-scale using a semi-automated, fully enclosed system for cell manufacturing. The manufacture and delivery of programmed T cell therapies to patients involves processes, including harvesting T cells from patients, programming the T cells ex vivo, or outside the body, multiplying the programmed T cells to obtain the desired dose, and infusing the programmed T cells back into a patient’s body. The company’s semi-automated system for cell manufacturing is designed to provide a common platform suitable for manufacturing all of its product candidates and to allow for quick development of product candidates through clinical trial phases and the regulatory approval processes, according to information from the company.  Autolus says it plans to build internal manufacturing and supply capabilities as well as to use collaborators on some of the aspects of product delivery, logistics, and capacity expansion.

Source: Autolus (press statement) and Autolus Registration Filing with the US SEC