(Alliance News) - Hemogenyx Pharmaceuticals PLC on Monday said its chimeric based receptor platform could "potentially" be used to treat cancer and viral diseases.

Shares in Hemogenyx rose 11% to 2.78 pence each in London on Monday morning.

The London-based biopharmaceutical company focused on treatments for deadly blood diseases said that when programmed with CBR, immune cells were able to "eliminate" Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma derived cells with "high efficiency."

This means Hemogenyx will be able to develop treatment for people suffering from relapsed and/or refractory stage three and four NHL, the company said. Additionally, it noted that it has "reason to believe" CBR may be adapted to target solid tumours.

The pharmaceutical company has also been testing CBR on SARS-Cov-2, the virus which causes Covid-19. Results have shown that "human macrophage cells programmed with CBR against SARS-CoV-2 are effective in in vitro experiments," it explained.

Chief Executive Officer Vladislav Sandler commented: "This is an exciting breakthrough in proving the versatility of our CBR platform, greatly widening its potential use against cancers, in addition to the original pursuit of combatting viral infections. We are extremely pleased to see that CBR can potentially be used to develop new treatments for cancers such as NHL, as well as potentially for solid tumours, which are a significant challenge for existing therapies. We have also made meaningful advances in proving CBR's potential viability in treating COVID-19 and other viruses. We are hugely encouraged by these recent developments, and I am proud of Hemogenyx Pharmaceuticals' team of scientists who achieved this leap forward."

By Sabrina Penty, Alliance News reporter

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