Why Is Cell & Gene Therapy-Focused Senti Biosciences Stock Trading Higher Today?

Senti Biosciences Inc SNTI announced a new strategic collaboration with Celest Therapeutics (Shanghai) Co Ltd, a China-based biotechnology company, for the clinical development of SENTI-301A to treat solid tumors in China.

SENTI-301A is a multi-armed, off-the-shelf, healthy donor-derived CAR-NK cell therapy designed for GPC3-expressing tumors. 

Through this collaboration, Celest will lead clinical development, operations, and manufacturing to advance SENTI-301A with technical support from Senti Bio. 

Celest plans to enroll patients initially through a pilot trial in mainland China and expects to enroll the first patient in the first half of 2024. 

Celest and Senti Bio have the option to expand the clinical development of SENTI-301A to Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. 

Senti Bio will retain all commercialization rights outside mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan for SENTI-301A.

Under the terms of the collaboration, Senti Bio will be eligible to receive up to $156 million in certain milestone payments, in addition to potential tiered royalty payments. Other terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

The planned dose-finding trial will include nine patients with advanced glypican 3-expressing hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) across two dose cohorts. 

Endpoints will include safety assessments for adverse events and dose-limiting toxicities, as well as efficacy analyses using standard response criteria for liver cancer.

Price Action: SNTI shares are up 108.5% at $0.61 during the premarket session on the last check Tuesday.