Restoring
Company overview
Talaris is developing a single-dose cell therapy that seeks to free organ transplant recipients of the burdens and toxicities of lifelong immunosuppression, without rejecting their transplanted organ.
Ground-breaking clinical study
In a ground-breaking Phase 2 clinical study conducted between 2009 – 2016, our FCR001 therapy enabled 70% of living donor kidney transplant recipients to discontinue all immunosuppressive drugs by 12 months after their kidney transplant. We have followed some of these patients for more than eight years. To date, no patient that was able to discontinue immunosuppression has had to resume immunosuppression. We expect to launch a pivotal study of FCR001 in living donor kidney transplant patients quite soon. We also plan to explore our therapy’s potential to induce or restore immune tolerance for certain types of severe auto-immune or immune-mediated disorders, as well as in other organ transplant settings. Talaris is backed by leading life sciences investors Blackstone Life Sciences, Longitude Capital, and Qiming Venture Partners.
“To date, no patient that was able to discontinue immunosuppression has had to resume immunosuppression.”
Our approach
Talaris’ proprietary technology allows candidates for bone marrow transplants to receive hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) safely from unmatched and unrelated donors, without the toxicity and risks of a traditional bone marrow transplant.
The facilitating cells present in the Talaris product act as nurse cells to the HSCs, directing these cells to the niche in the bone marrow to facilitate engraftment. Once engraftment occurs, the donor’s HSCs produce new immune cells that coexist with the recipient’s cells. These cells help to reset the recipient’s immune system and allow the recipient to recognize the transplanted kidney as “self”.
Our Name
Talaris is adapted from “talaria,” the winged sandals worn by Greek messenger god Hermes. These sandals protected Hermes and delivered him to safety. In a similar way, the facilitating cells central to our platform protect and deliver other immune cells to safety within the recipient patient. It’s also more broadly symbolic of how we hope to help our patients live better lives “beyond the transplant”.