Hemogenyx Pharmaceuticals plc announced significant progress in relation to moving its lead product candidate Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T-cells (HEMO-CAR-T) toward clinical trials. The Company has applied for a pre-Investigational New Drug (PIND) application meeting with the FDA regarding HEMO-CAR-T, the purpose of which is to enable the Company to complete the planning of clinical trials for the product candidate and submission of the Investigational New Drug (IND) application. The PIND meeting facilitates the preparation and submission of a complete IND application by giving companies a valuable opportunity to obtain FDA feedback on a drug development programme, the intended design of clinical trials, and other questions including manufacturing, quality, safety and regulatory matters. PIND meetings take place only when a developer is commencing the design of a clinical trial in the US. During the PIND meeting, the FDA may provide recommendations and a preliminary indication of its agreement with key aspects of the manufacturing, quality, safety and the clinical trial programme that can help to shape the IND application. The meeting helps to build a relationship with the FDA, ensures that a submitted complete IND application is not met with objections or possible objections from FDA are minimal, and potentially avoid "clinical holds" (FDA orders to delay or suspend clinical trials once they have begun). AML, the most common type of acute leukemia in adults, has poor survival rates (a five-year survival rate of less than 30% in adults) and is currently treated using chemotherapy, rather than the potentially more benign and effective form of therapy being developed by Hemogenyx Pharmaceuticals. The successful development of the new therapy for AML would have a major impact on treatment and survival rates for the disease. CAR-T therapy is a treatment in which a patient's own T-cells, a type of immune cell, are modified to recognize and kill the patient's cancer cells. The procedure involves: isolating T-cells from the patient; modifying the isolated T-cells in a laboratory using a CAR gene construct (which allows the cells to recognize the patient's cancer); amplifying (growing to large numbers) the newly modified cells; and re-introducing the cells back into the patient.