(RTTNews) – Carisma Therapeutics Inc. (CARM) presented promising preclinical data on engineered macrophages for treating liver fibrosis at the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD). These results underscore the pre-clinical efficacy of Carisma’s engineered macrophages in multiple liver fibrosis models and offer a novel, off-the-shelf potential treatment option for patients with fibrotic liver disease including advanced metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH).
Liver fibrosis is a central late-stage pathway in multiple liver diseases, including MASH, acute liver injury, primary sclerosing cholangitis, primary biliary cholangitis, and others.
The company noted that the new preclinical results demonstrated that macrophages can be genetically engineered to target specific key pathways underlying liver disease with factors including TIM4 (restores efferocytosis), relaxin (inhibits hepatic stellate cell activation), and IL10 (reduces inflammation). Notably, a single dose of macrophages expressing TIM4, alone or together with relaxin, significantly reduced liver fibrosis and hepatic stellate cell activation in the translationally relevant choline-deficient, L-amino acid-defined, high-fat diet (CDAHFD) MASH model. The engineered macrophages were well tolerated and outperformed non-engineered cells in all models.
Based on the promising findings, the company is committed to advancing its liver fibrosis program.
Carisma expects to nominate a development candidate for its liver fibrosis program in the first quarter of 2025.
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