SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – Atara Biotherapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATRA), a pioneer in T-cell immunotherapy, leveraging its novel allogeneic EBV T-cell platform to develop transformative therapies for patients with cancer and autoimmune diseases, today announced the Company has joined the Rare Disease Company Coalition. The coalition represents an alliance of innovative life sciences companies committed to discovering, developing and delivering rare disease treatments for the patients they serve.
“Patients living with Epstein-Barr virus-driven post-transplant lymphoproliferative disease (EBV+ PTLD), a rare blood cancer that may develop following a life-saving solid organ or stem cell transplant, are in critical need of therapies specifically designed to effectively and safely treat their condition,” said AJ Joshi, M.D., Chief Medical Officer at Atara. “As Atara strives to address this unmet need, we must work in concert with industry and policy makers to advance effective policies that encourage continued innovation and acceleration of safe and potentially life-saving allogeneic cell therapies for rare and ultra-rare diseases such as PTLD and other EBV-driven hematologic and solid tumors. We are grateful to be among our peers who share this motivation and look forward to advancing these initiatives together.”
The collective goal of the Coalition is to inform policymakers of the novel promise of these treatments and unique challenges faced in taking rare disease therapies from research and development through to commercialization. The Coalition will advocate for policy and regulatory frameworks that take into account considerations of innovators in the rare disease space and their important impact on delivering therapies to the patients they serve.
Upcoming initiatives and work of the Coalition include continued engagement with policymakers on the unique needs of the rare disease community, the urgency of and support for innovation to address significant unmet patient need and dialogue around policies that advocate for timely and appropriate access to safe and transformational treatments.
About the Rare Disease Company Coalition
The Rare Disease Company Coalition represents life science companies committed to discovering, developing and delivering rare disease treatments for the patients we serve. As an education and advocacy-focused coalition of companies, our goal is to inform policymakers of the unique challenges and promises of rare disease drug discovery, development and manufacturing for small population sizes in order for critical innovation to continue. To achieve this goal, we will use our unified voice to advocate for long-term, consistent, equitable and sustainable government policies that enable life science companies to continue to bring hope and provide access to approved treatments to people living with rare diseases. For more information, please visit www.rarecoalition.com.
About Atara Biotherapeutics, Inc.
Atara Biotherapeutics, Inc. (@Atarabio) is a pioneer in T-cell immunotherapy leveraging its novel allogeneic EBV T-cell platform to develop transformative therapies for patients with serious diseases including solid tumors, hematologic cancers and autoimmune disease. With our lead program in Phase 3 clinical development, Atara is the most advanced allogeneic T-cell immunotherapy company and intends to rapidly deliver off-the-shelf treatments to patients with high unmet medical need. Our platform leverages the unique biology of EBV T cells and has the capability to treat a wide range of EBV-associated diseases, or other serious diseases through incorporation of engineered CARs (chimeric antigen receptors) or TCRs (T-cell receptors). Atara is applying this one platform to create a robust pipeline including: tab-cel® in Phase 3 development for Epstein-Barr virus-driven post-transplant lymphoproliferative disease (EBV+ PTLD) and other EBV-driven diseases; ATA188, a T-cell immunotherapy targeting EBV antigens as a potential treatment for multiple sclerosis; and multiple next-generation chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) immunotherapies for both solid tumors and hematologic malignancies. Improving patients’ lives is our mission and we will never stop working to bring transformative therapies to those in need. Atara is headquartered in South San Francisco and our leading-edge research, development and manufacturing facility is based in Thousand Oaks, California. For additional information about the company, please visit atarabio.com and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Contact:
Investors
Eric Hyllengren
805-395-9669
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Media
Alex Chapman
805-456-4772
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