British researchers have unveiled a second-generation CAR-T therapy, reporting promising findings in an early trial involving patients with treatment resistant B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia.
Researchers at University College London developed the treatment, known as obecabtagene autoleucel (obe-cel), with a view to solving the problems with the existing, NHS approved therapy. The trial suggests it succeeds in reducing immune toxicity and has improved persistence in patients, the researchers report.
The findings have been published recently in the New England Journal of Medicine.
127 adult patients received obe-cel in the phase 1b-2 clinical trial in hospitals in the UK, Europe and the USA. They were patients who had not responded to treatment or who needed further treatment.
According to the researchers, 74.7% of patients enjoyed a remission after the treatment. They estimated nearly half would be alive and disease free after a year.
Just 2.4% of patients suffered severe cytokine release syndrome. This compares favourably to the approved UK treatment brexu-cel, with around 24% of patients experiencing severe cytokine release syndrome.
Researcher Dr Claire Roddie, from the UCL Cancer Institute, said: “While we have a licensed CAR-T therapy to treat r/r B-ALL in the UK, high toxicity is an issue in around a quarter of patients and lack of CAR-T persistence in the blood can lead to relapse and the requirement for more lines of therapy, including stem cell transplant.
“In contrast, our results from the FELIX study demonstrate that obe-cel can induce durable remissions with substantially fewer toxicity issues, which is great news for patients with what has historically been a very difficult cancer to treat.”
Source:
Roddie C, Sandhu KS, Tholouli E, Logan AC, Shaughnessy P, Barba P, Ghobadi A, Guerreiro M, Yallop D, Abedi M, Pantin JM, Yared JA, Beitinjaneh AM, Chaganti S, Hodby K, Menne T, Arellano ML, Malladi R, Shah BD, Mountjoy L, O'Dwyer KM, Peggs KS, Lao-Sirieix P, Zhang Y, Brugger W, Braendle E, Pule M, Bishop MR, DeAngelo DJ, Park JH, Jabbour E. (2024) “Obecabtagene Autoleucel in Adults with B-Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia.” N Eng J Med, 27 November 2024, doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa2406526
Link: https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMoa2406526
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