A new refinement increases the safety of CAR-T therapy

Source: Immedicohospitalario.es

Bellicum Pharma has reported the preliminary results of its phase I / II dose escalation study in 12 patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer treated with BPX-601, the first CAR-T therapy with a controllable activation mechanism.

Of the 6 patients evaluable so far, four had stabilization of the disease, with the reduction in tumor size of at least 20% in two of them. BPX-601 therapy is directed to the PSCA tumor antigen and has the peculiarity of being activated after oral dosing of the patient with rimiducid, a liposoluble analog of tacrolimus, used to induce homodimerization and subsequent activation of chimeric receptors. In the absence of rimiducid, the expansion and persistence of CAR-T lymphocytes in the body was limited, according to Bellicum researchers. In contrast, a single administration 7 days before that of BPX-601 resulted in an expansion of between 3 and 20 times and in a persistence of at least 3 weeks.

The biotechnology hopes that this new mechanism will enable CAR-T lymphocytes to evade the inhibitory mechanisms associated with immune check-points and the TGF-beta pathway. So far in this trial there has been no case of cytokine release syndrome, a potentially severe and specific adverse effect of this type of therapy.

In Distefar we echo this news about the introduction of a new mechanism that allows controlling the moment when cells are activated.