China-based CellOrigin Biotech and Walvax Biotechnology have launched an investigator-initiated clinical program evaluating an mRNA-LNP-based in vivo GPC3-targeted CAR-T therapy for hepatocellular carcinoma, marking one of the first disclosed Chinese clinical efforts in the emerging in vivo CAR-T field.
The collaboration combines CellOrigin's cell therapy design capabilities with Walvax's GMP mRNA manufacturing infrastructure, reflecting a partnership model common among Chinese biotechnology companies. Walvax's mRNA-LNP manufacturing infrastructure originates from its COVID-19 vaccine program, and this represents the company's first disclosed co-development in therapeutic mRNA oncology.
The program's preclinical basis was presented at ASCO 2025, while CellOrigin used the ASCO 2026 meeting to simultaneously present two additional solid tumor candidates: CAR-Mix, a combination of engineered macrophages and polyclonal T cells with an IIT already underway in mesothelin-positive ovarian cancer, and TMT Engager, an LNP-mRNA-based in vivo T-cell engager designed to form tripartite conjugates between T cells, macrophages, and tumor cells.
GPC3 has become one of the leading targets in HCC cell therapy. The closest comparator is perhaps Myeloid Therapeutics, which initiated first patient dosing with MT-303 — a GPC3-targeting RNA CAR delivered via LNP — in a Phase I study for advanced HCC in July 2024, and subsequently presented first-in-human in vivo mRNA CAR data at ASCO 2025. Unlike CellOrigin's approach, Myeloid's platform programs myeloid cells rather than T cells. Carisma Therapeutics (Nasdaq: CARM), under its collaboration with Moderna, has also nominated a GPC3 in vivo CAR-macrophage development candidate for HCC, targeting macrophages rather than T cells via the same mRNA-LNP delivery framework.