Oncologist Dr. Vijay Patil of Mumbai carried out the nation’s first allogeneic CAR-T treatment procedure at the PD Hinduja Hospital. This involved taking T-cells from a donor and infusing them into a patient.
For those suffering from solid organ cancers, this offers fresh hope. The CAR-T option is currently available for a certain type of blood cancer as ImmunoACT’s locally developed invention, NexCar-19, has been given the go-ahead to be treated.
We had to import the allogenic CAR-T cells and make sure they were securely transported while keeping a constant temperature of -80 degrees Celsius because they are not yet prepared in India. Following the procedure’s successful conclusion, we are eager to provide hundreds of more patients in India with this state-of-the-art care, according to Dr. Patil.
Using genetically altered T-cells, also known as immune cells, to eradicate cancer cells within a patient’s body is known as CAR T-cell therapy.
According to Dr. Patil, the CAR T-cell therapies that are currently licensed by the US FDA and our in-house developed NexCar19 are only effective against tumors that possess particular antigens, including CD19 and BCMA, or “locks.”
Consequently, these adoptive cellular immunotherapies are limited to utilizing either the patient’s own (autologous) αβ (Alpha-Beta) T-cells or those from donors who match the patient’s HLA (human leukocyte antigen) profile. They may cause the potentially fatal graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) in an HLA-mismatched patient, he said.