In October 2026, TAP made a strategic investment in AvenCell Therapeutics to support the clinical development of investigational, allogeneic, or “off-the-shelf,” CAR-T cell therapy for people with relapsed or refractory blood cancers.
AvenCell Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing next-generation allogeneic CAR-T cell therapies for blood cancers. The company’s technology combines healthy donor-derived, gene-edited T cells with a switchable targeting system designed to give physicians greater control over CAR-T activity. Unlike traditional CAR-T therapies that are manufactured individually from a patient's own cells, AvenCell's approach is designed to provide an off-the-shelf therapy that can be available when patients need treatment.
TAP support will help advance the Phase 1b expansion of AVC-201 and generate additional evidence about its safety, durability of response, blood-count recovery, and potential role for patients with AML.
AVC-201 is AvenCell's lead program and is being developed for relapsed or refractory AML. The therapy targets CD123, a protein found on many AML cells, using a separately administered targeting module that connects the CAR-T cells to the cancer cells. This switchable approach allows treatment activity to be controlled by adjusting or stopping the targeting module, an important feature because CD123 can also be found on healthy blood-forming cells. Early clinical findings have shown encouraging activity in heavily pretreated patients, and the program is advancing into Phase 1b expansion. AVC-201 is being evaluated in the Phase 1/1b RevSTAR-123 clinical trial (NCT05949125).
AvenCell is also developing AVC-203, an investigational allogeneic CAR-T therapy targeting CD19 and CD20 for patients with B-cell malignancies, including B-cell lymphomas (NCT07284433). AVC-203 is earlier in clinical development and provides an opportunity to evaluate AvenCell's allogeneic CAR-T platform across another group of blood cancers.
For more information about AvenCell visit avencell.com.
Recent News
- September 24, 2026 – Ligand Pharmaceuticals and AvenCell Therapeutics announced a financing agreement for up to $47 million to support advancement of AvenCell’s pipeline, including AVC-201 for relapsed/refractory AML and AVC-203 for B-cell malignancies.
- June 2, 2026 – AvenCell Therapeutics announced that Phase 1a results from the RevSTAR-123 study of AVC-201, its switchable allogeneic CD123-targeted CAR-T therapy for AML, would be presented in a late-breaking plenary oral presentation at the 2026 EHA Congress.