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CARIBOU BIOSCIENCES Caribou Biosciences Provides Business Update and Reports Third Quarter 2021 Financial Results November 9 , 2021 On track to achieve key milestones , including plan to disclose initial clinical data in 2022 for lead product candidate CB - 010 Expanded leadership with appointments of Ran Zheng and Dara Richardson - Heron , M.D. , to board of directors and Ruhi Khan as chief business officer Ended third quarter with strong cash position of $ 435.3 million BERKELEY , Calif . , Nov. 09 , 2021 ( GLOBE NEWSWIRE ) -- Caribou Biosciences , Inc. ( Nasdaq : CRBU ) , a leading clinical - stage CRISPR genome- editing biopharmaceutical company , today reported business highlights and financial results for the third quarter of 2021 . " Our important progress during 2021 continues as we advanced our lead therapeutic product candidate into the clinic , completed a successful IPO , and expanded our leadership team with highly experienced and regarded professionals , " said Rachel Haurwitz , Ph.D. , Caribou's president and chief executive officer . " Caribou's differentiated chRDNA genome - editing technology and proprietary delivery approach enable high specificity multiplex editing , which we believe is key to the creation of sophisticated allogeneic CAR - T and CAR - NK therapies that have the potential to provide persistent antitumor activity . We are developing our four wholly - owned allogeneic cell therapy product candidates for the treatment of hematologic and solid tumors , including our lead product candidate , CB - 010 , which is being evaluated in the ANTLER Phase 1 clinical trial in patients with relapsed or refractory B cell non - Hodgkin lymphoma . We look forward to achieving key milestones in 2022 , including our plans to disclose initial data from the ANTLER trial as well as to file an IND for our next product candidate , CB - 011 . " Recent Business Highlights Published data demonstrating the significantly improved specificity of Caribou's proprietary CRISPR hybrid RNA - DNA ( chRDNA ) guide technology compared to all - RNA guides . In September 2021 , Caribou and its collaborators published studies demonstrating that its CRISPR hybrid RNA - DNA ( chRDNA ) guide technology provides significantly improved specificity compared to all - RNA guides , thereby enabling high levels of intended genomic edits in cells while eliminating or minimizing inadvertent off - target events . Higher specificity is a key advantage of Caribou's cell therapies and of critical importance in therapies that contain multiple genome edits . The data were described in a peer - reviewed article entitled , " Conformational control of Cas9 by CRISPR hybrid RNA - DNA guides mitigates off - target activity in T cells , " in the journal Molecular Cell . Expanded Caribou's board of directors . Ran Zheng and Dara Richardson - Heron , M.D. , were appointed to Caribou's board of directors in September 2021 and November 2021 , respectively . Ms. Zheng brings over 25 years of biotechnology industry leadership experience in biologics drug development with broad expertise in technical operations and the manufacture of gene and cell therapies and currently serves as chief executive officer of Landmark Bio . Dr. Richardson - Heron has over 25 years of leadership experience in the healthcare , corporate , nonprofit , and government sectors . She previously served as chief patient officer for Pfizer and chief executive officer for the YWCA of the USA and for the Greater NYC Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure . They join existing directors : Andrew Guggenhime ( board chair ) , Scott Braunstein , M.D. , Rachel Haurwitz , Ph.D. , Natalie Sacks , M.D. , and Nancy Whiting , Pharm.D . Added to Caribou's leadership team . In November 2021 , Caribou appointed Ruhi Khan as chief business officer . Ms. Khan brings over 20 years of business development and investment management experience focused on the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries . Completed upsized IPO raising $ 321.0 million in net proceeds . In July and August 2021 , Caribou completed its IPO , selling a total of 21,850,000 shares for aggregate net proceeds of $ 321.0 million , after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and other offering expenses . Upcoming Milestones CB - 010 : Caribou expects to disclose initial data from the ongoing ANTLER Phase 1 trial in patients with relapsed or refractory B - NHL in 2022. CB - 010 is an allogeneic anti - CD19 CAR - T cell therapy derived from healthy donor T cells engineered using Cas9 chRDNA technology to introduce a CD19 - specific CAR into the TRAC gene locus , thus eliminating expression of the T cell receptor to reduce the risk of graft versus host disease . The T cells are further modified to knock out the PDCD1 gene , preventing the expression of the PD - 1 protein , and with the intent of boosting the persistence of CAR - T cell antitumor activity . CB - 011 : Caribou expects to file an Investigational New Drug ( IND ) application for its CB - 011 program in 2022. CB - 011 is an allogeneic anti - BCMA CAR - T cell therapy derived from healthy donor T cells that is being developed as a potential treatment for relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma . Caribou is engineering healthy donor T cells using its proprietary Cas12a chRDNA technology to introduce a humanized BCMA - specific CAR into the TRAC gene locus . In addition , Caribou utilizes an immune cloaking strategy designed to prevent rapid immune rejection of CB - 011 . This strategy comprises two edits : knockout of the endogenous B2M gene and site - specific insertion of a B2M - HLA - E fusion gene into the T cell genome . CB - 012 : Caribou expects to file an IND application for its CB - 012 program in 2023. CB - 012 is an allogeneic anti - CD371 CAR - T cell therapy derived from healthy donor T cells for the potential treatment of relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia . CB - 012 cells are engineered using Caribou's proprietary Cas12a chRDNA technology to introduce a fully - human CD371 - specific CAR into the TRAC locus and to armor the cells to promote their persistence . CB - 020 : Caribou expects to announce target selection for its CB - 020 program in 2022. CB - 020 , a CAR - NK product candidate , is the lead program in Caribou's proprietary genome - edited iPSC - derived natural killer ( iNK ) cell therapy platform . Multiplex - edited CAR - NKs hold significant potential for treating a variety of solid tumor types .