Sana Biotechnology Highlights Publication in Nature Biotechnology of Novel In Vivo Preclinical Data Showing the Potential for Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Human Glial Progenitor Cell Transplantation as a Treatment for Huntington’s Disease and Other Glial

Healthy transplanted human glial cells replaced diseased glial cells in the brains of human glial chimeric Huntingtin mice

Additional proof-of-concept for the advancement of SC379, Sana’s pluripotent stem cell-derived glial progenitor cell product candidate

SEATTLE, May 21, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sana Biotechnology, Inc. (NASDAQ: SANA), a company focused on changing the possible for patients through engineered cells, today highlighted that Nature Biotechnology has published a paper titled “Young glial progenitor cells competitively replace aged and diseased human glia in the adult chimeric mouse brain.” This paper showed that when healthy wild-type (WT), pluripotent stem cell-derived glial progenitor cells (hGPCs) – the cells that give rise to the glial support cells of the brain – were transplanted into adult mice that had been neonatally transplanted with mutant Huntingtin (mHTT)-expressing hGPCs, the healthy cells outcompeted and eliminated the diseased glia, ultimately repopulating the brain with the healthy transplanted cells. These data establish an additional proof-of-concept for the development of SC379, Sana’s pluripotent stem cell-derived GPC product candidate, as a potential therapy to deliver healthy allogeneic GPCs to patients with certain central nervous system disorders.

“It is remarkable to see that healthy human glial cells can engraft and function in vivo, and succeed in outcompeting resident glial cells, thereby eradicating the diseased cells from the brain of the mice,” said Steve Harr, Sana’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “We have designed SC379 as a potential glial cell replacement therapy, and these findings support its possible application in a large number of neurological indications, such as secondary progressive multiple sclerosis and the childhood myelin disorders like Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease, as well as Huntington’s disease and other diseases of glial cells. Our goal is to begin clinical testing of SC379 as early as 2025.”

Steve Goldman, MD, PhD, Sana’s Head of CNS Therapy and lead author on the paper, added, “Diseases of glial cells are among the most prevalent and debilitating conditions in neurology, as they include both the myelin-producing oligodendrocytes and the astrocytic support cells of neurons. We have developed the methods for producing and isolating glial progenitor cells – which produce both oligodendrocytes and astrocytes – from pluripotent stem cells, and for delivering them in the purity and quantity necessary to replace diseased cell populations.”