Kelonia Therapeutics and Johnson & Johnson Form Strategic Collaboration to Develop Next-Generation In Vivo CAR-T Therapies

October 2025 · Cambridge, Massachusetts — Kelonia Therapeutics announced today a strategic collaboration with Johnson & Johnson to advance the development of in vivo CAR-T cell therapies, a next-generation approach that could transform how cellular immunotherapies are manufactured and delivered to patients.

The partnership centers on Kelonia’s proprietary iGPS® (in vivo Gene Placement System) platform — a lentiviral vector technology designed to deliver genetic instructions directly to specific cells inside the body. By enabling patients’ own immune systems to generate therapeutic CAR-T cells in situ, the approach eliminates the need for complex and time-consuming ex vivo manufacturing steps such as leukapheresis, cell engineering, and reinfusion.

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Transforming Cell Therapy Delivery

Conventional CAR-T treatments require individualized cell extraction and modification, often leading to high costs, limited scalability, and restricted availability to major medical centers.

Kelonia’s iGPS® platform instead uses engineered lentiviral vectors that selectively target immune cells, allowing for a one-time, in-body administration that reprograms the patient’s own T cells to recognize and attack cancer cells.

This collaboration aims to accelerate clinical evaluation of in vivo CAR-T candidates across hematologic malignancies and solid tumors. Johnson & Johnson will contribute expertise in oncology drug development, regulatory strategy, and commercialization, while Kelonia will lead early research and platform optimization efforts.

Both companies emphasized that in vivo CAR-T technology represents a critical step toward expanding the reach of cellular immunotherapies beyond specialized facilities, potentially enabling broader, more equitable access for patients worldwide.

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Source: Kelonia Therapeutics, “Kelonia Therapeutics Enters Strategic Collaboration with Johnson & Johnson to Advance In Vivo CAR-T Therapies,” Press Release, October 2025.