THERACELL

Covid-19 has shown us the need to find innovative strategies to act quickly in the event of a pandemic. Vaccine strategies as well as drug repositioning strategies require a relatively long validation time. The use of plasma has not been as successful as expected. However, cell therapy offers interesting advantages in meeting therapeutic needs and THERACELL's work consists of optimising the nature of the cells used.

THERACELL's innovation is to produce terminally differentiated, short-lived antigen-specific T cells that can be used for adoptive transfer in patients and that target and kill diseased cells.

This cell therapy strategy allows the use of convalescent or biotechnologically produced cells to treat infected individuals.

Broad spectrum of use against communicable and non-communicable diseases, composed only of natural products, minimal or no expected side effects.

Two-stage response: 15 days with cells from convalescent patients (to respond to the immediate epidemic emergency) and then about 2 months with cells grown in larger volumes.

Proof of concept was successfully achieved in vivo in influenza or COVID-19 mouse models, showing 100% and up to 60% protection of infected animals respectively. In addition, repeated injections followed over the long term showed a complete absence of response against the graft (GVH).

• Emerging infectious diseases and zoonosis
• Immunotherapies (cancers, autoimmune diseases etc.)