New award will support development of remotely controlled Peptide-Centric CAR T-cell therapy for hard-to-treat solid tumors
LOS ANGELES, CA – September 22, 2026 – Mabswitch Inc., (Mabswitch) today announced that it has received a second Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I award from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to advance its remote-controlled Peptide-Centric CAR (PC-CAR) T-cell therapy program for hard-to-treat solid tumors. The program will be conducted in collaboration with Dr. Mark Yarmarkovich and his research group at New York University (NYU).
The award follows recently announced NCI support for Mabswitch’s SMART-ADC™ platform, which is applying programmable target engagement to antibody-drug conjugates. The two programs address very different therapeutic modalities, but they share a common principle. Important therapeutic properties do not necessarily have to remain fixed after administration.
CAR T-cell therapies have transformed the treatment of certain hematologic malignancies, but identifying suitable cell-surface targets remains a major challenge for many solid tumors. Peptide-Centric CARs are designed to extend CAR T-cell recognition beyond conventional cell-surface antigens by targeting peptide-HLA complexes derived from intracellular proteins. This potentially opens access to a much broader landscape of tumor targets.
Accessing this expanded target space also creates an important challenge. Recognition of peptide-HLA complexes requires a high degree of specificity, and unintended cross-reactivity can have significant consequences when incorporated into potent T-cell therapies. Mabswitch’s remote-controlled PC-CAR approach is designed to address both sides of this challenge. It combines access to intracellular tumor antigens through peptide-HLA recognition with a pharmacologic control layer designed to regulate CAR T-cell activity and mitigate the consequences of unintended cross-reactivity.
The NCI-funded Phase I program will establish proof of concept for this approach through molecular, cellular and in vivo studies. The studies will evaluate whether remote pharmacologic control can be incorporated into a functional Peptide-Centric CAR T-cell system for solid tumors.
For Mabswitch, the award represents another step in a broader effort to develop programmable therapeutics, with the goal of creating medicines whose important functional properties can be controlled after administration.
“We are delighted to receive NCI support for a second program exploring programmable therapeutic control,” said Dr. Yemi Onakunle, Founder and CEO of Mabswitch. “Our SMART-ADC and remote-controlled PC-CAR programs approach cancer therapy from very different directions, but they raise the same fundamental question. As our ability to understand and target disease becomes increasingly sophisticated, should the medicines we use to treat it remain functionally fixed once they enter the patient?”
“We are also delighted to be undertaking this program with Dr. Mark Yarmarkovich and his group at NYU. Their expertise in Peptide-Centric CAR T-cell biology will be important as we explore how remote pharmacologic control can be applied to this emerging class of engineered cell therapies,” Dr. Onakunle added.
Mabswitch is exploring programmable therapeutic control across antibody-based therapeutics and engineered cell therapies. The company believes that combining increasingly precise disease targeting with the ability to dynamically regulate therapeutic function could provide an important additional dimension in the design of next-generation medicines.
About Mabswitch
Mabswitch is developing programmable therapeutics designed to provide dynamic control over biological activity after administration. The company is applying this approach across antibody-based therapeutics and engineered cell therapies, with the goal of expanding therapeutic windows and enabling new approaches to the treatment of cancer.
Funding Acknowledgment
Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R43CA310118. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
