Tevogen Bio
Revolutionizing Healthcare Through An Innovative Public Health Centric Model

Ryan Saadi, M.D., M.P.H, Chairman and CEO

A case in point is oncology care. Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy is a highly effective form of personalized immunotherapy that has led to unprecedented response rates in patients with certain types of cancers. While it is an incredible feat for medical science and a vital relief for patients, the cost of care has been a major stumbling block for the healthcare system. CAR T-cell therapies and other personalized therapies like gene and cellular therapies, which offer potential cures for different types of tumors, genetic disorders, and hematologic malignancies, cost millions of dollars. Hence, these therapies can neither be afforded by the public health system nor can be adequately reimbursed by insurance companies.

Is there no way for immunotherapies to be made affordable to large patient populations? Enter Tevogen Bio – the first-ever public health-centric biotechnology company. Tevogen Bio was founded with the aim of delivering greater health equity by making the very expensive and sophisticated personalized immunotherapies available to everyone. The company is the brainchild of a pool of vastly experienced leaders encompassing all aspects of the healthcare system—including scientists, healthcare providers, payers, policymakers, and industry experts. “We believe affordable personalized immunotherapies are the next frontier of medicine. What we have succeeded in developing is a highly profitable healthcare model that can make these personalized immunotherapies affordable,” says Ryan Saadi, M.D., M.P.H., chairman and CEO of Tevogen Bio. The company, thus, triumphs in delivering a win-win situation for both the medical investor community and the patient population.

To lower the costs of such personalized therapies, Tevogen Bio improves on existing treatment procedures. Notably, the two major hurdles in developing allogeneic T-cell therapies for a large patient population had been the quantity and purity of the desired T-cells in a donor’s blood sample. As a consequence, it has been both expensive and technically challenging to enrich the desired cells sufficiently and to obtain sufficient quantities of them to allow large numbers of patients to be treated. However, quite remarkably, Tevogen Bio has succeeded in overcoming these two hurdles with their proprietary T-cell technologies. The preclinical studies conducted by Tevogen Bio have demonstrated that their proprietary technologies have been successful in generating the desired T-cells at scale, with unmatched purity and high cytolytic ability (the ability to destroy a viral infected cell or cancer cell).

Tevogen Bio’s investigational COVID-19 therapy, TVGN-489, has demonstrated strong antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2 in preclinical studies

The Game Changer in the Fight against the COVID-19

While Tevogen Bio’s initial objective with its immunotherapeutic platform was to develop curative and preventative T-cell therapies for oncology care, the COVID-19 pandemic has set them on a new path as well. Since the onset of the pandemic, multiple variants of SARS-CoV-2 have been identified from different parts of the world causing concern that some variants might emerge which would be capable of evading current vaccines. “We realized that if we created T-cells that identified targets from throughout the entire genetic sequence of the virus instead of a single portion, such as the spike protein, such a therapeutic would be far more likely to remain effective despite the virus’s propensity for mutations,” said Saadi.

Thus, extending their scope to viral illnesses, Tevogen Bio’s proprietary technologies promise to play a vital role in fighting viruses like SARS-CoV-2. On that front, their investigational COVID-19 therapy, TVGN-489, has demonstrated strong antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2 in preclinical studies. “The TVGN-489 T-cells have reached levels of purity and effectiveness not previously reported in killing COVID-19 infected cells, which is quite a disruptive advancement in itself,” states Saadi.

TVGN-489 can be a force multiplier for efforts underway to combat COVID-19. “The ongoing trends are concerning, including lack of global vaccine availability and surging viral mutations. Curative T-cell therapies can thus provide the much-needed safety net for governments and constituents to return to some semblance of normalcy,” mentions Saadi. Tevogen Bio’s Investigational New Drug (IND) application recently received clearance from the FDA, and the company is looking forward to beginning human trials within the next few months.

Simultaneously, preclinical studies for other virus infections and oncology targets are also underway at Tevogen Bio. And to expedite and optimize these research efforts, the company has established strategic partnerships with leading academic institutions in the country.

Riding on the coattails of such extensive capabilities, Tevogen Bio is well set to revolutionize healthcare in the post-COVID era with its disruptive healthcare model. Their goal to deliver ‘personalized medicine for the mass’ will indeed play an instrumental role in bringing about greater health equity for everyone, especially the underprivileged who did not have access to personalized immunotherapies in the past. Saadi further cites that their immunotherapeutic platform will also serve as an ideal exemplar for “the healthcare model of the future.” “It’s not a question of “if” but “when” the next pandemic will surface. At that time, affordable personalized immunotherapies will play a prominent role in developing effective treatments swiftly,” concludes Saadi.