Wellington Zhaotai Therapies Limited

Wellington Zhaotai Therapies Limited was established in 2017 as a joint venture between the Malaghan and Chinese biotechnology company Hunan Zhaotai Medical Group to co-develop a novel third-generation chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy in New Zealand for the global market.

The partnership builds on a long-standing scientific collaboration with Professor Peng Li at the Guangzhou Institute of Biomedicine and Health. Following promising early results with a third-generation CAR T-cell construct, Wellington Zhaotai Therapies was formed to further develop the technology to meet international regulatory standards.

Wellington Zhaotai Therapies holds the commercial rights to the CAR T-cell technology (WZTL-002) outside China and has provided an Australasian sublicense to the Malaghan. This sublicensed construct has been used to develop the CAR T-cell product currently being trialled in New Zealand in the ENABLE trials.

Clinical development in New Zealand

The Malaghan has progressed the therapy through local regulatory pathways, working to establish the framework required to deliver CAR T-cell technology into New Zealand and build clinical capability. In 2019, the phase 1 ENABLE safety trial began for patients with relapsed and refractory B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma who had exhausted other treatment options.

Parallel laboratory research has focused on refining and characterising the therapy, including modifications to the CAR construct designed to reduce the risk of key toxicities such as cytokine release syndrome and neurotoxicity.

The Malaghan holds the licence for New Zealand and Australia, while Wellington Zhaotai Therapies retains global commercial rights outside China. Access to this intellectual property has been granted to BioOra Limited to enable future commercial manufacture and delivery if clinical development is successful.