Arovella Therapeutics (ASX:ALA)

Arovella Therapeutics (ASX: ALA) is an Australian biotechnology company specialising in the development of invariant Natural Killer T (iNKT) cell therapies aimed at treating various cancers. Their proprietary allogeneic platform utilises healthy donor-derived iNKT cells, engineered with Chimeric Antigen Receptors (CARs) to target specific cancer antigens. This approach offers significant advantages over traditional autologous CAR-T therapies, including enhanced safety profiles, scalability, and the potential for off-the-shelf availability.​

The company’s lead candidate, ALA-101, combines iNKT cells with a CAR targeting CD19, an antigen commonly found on B-cell malignancies, such as lymphoma and leukaemia. Preclinical studies have demonstrated that ALA-101 maintains a highly cytotoxic population of CAR-iNKT cells capable of effectively targeting CD19-positive tumor cells. Arovella has successfully completed the process development and scale-up for ALA-101, achieving high yields of CAR19-positive iNKT cells with very high purity, and is progressing towards Phase 1 clinical trials. ​

Beyond ALA-101, Arovella is expanding its pipeline to address solid tumors by developing ALA-105, which targets Claudin 18.2, a clinically validated antigen expressed in several solid tumor types. The company is also exploring the integration of IL-12-TM cytokine technology to further enhance the efficacy of its CAR-iNKT cells.