Coeptis Therapeutics Holdings, Inc. announced that it has expanded its exclusive license agreement with the University of Pittsburgh to include autoimmune indications as part of its ongoing development of SNAP-CAR T and SNAP-CAR NK. This amended agreement builds upon the original exclusive license agreement with the University of Pittsburgh for SNAP-CAR T Cells, a "universal" CAR T technology platform designed to target multiple antigens simultaneously and potentially address a range of hematologic and solid tumors, and a recent amendment to the agreement for SNAP-CAR NK, an allogeneic natural killer (NK) cell therapy platform. Autoimmune diseases, including systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis, and multiple sclerosis, are known to result from autoreactive B cells.

Recent research, including a paper just published in The New England Journal of Medicine, suggests that CD19-targeting chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells, which have proven to be highly efficient in B cell malignancies, can also target autoreactive B cells that trigger autoimmune diseases. Research published in the peer-reviewed journalNature Communications demonstrated the ability of SNAP-CAR to provide a powerful adaptor strategy for fully programmable targeting of engineered cells to multiple antigens, including CD19. Based on these findings, Coeptis Therapeutics plans to expand the development of the SNAP-CAR platform to target the multibillion-dollar autoimmune disease market in addition to hematologic and solid tumors.