Kite Pharma flying high after promising Car-T trial
pharmafile | September 27, 2016 | News story | Manufacturing and Production, Research and Development | Cancer, Cart-T, kite pharma
Cart-T cell drugs are made by genetically altering patients’ T-cells to add a component of antibodies that make them better able to spot and kill cancer cells. Kite’s would be the first such type of treatment to reach the market, ahead of competitors who are also working on similar treatments, such as Juno Therapeutics Inc. and Novartis.
KTE-C19 targets the most common form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a particularly aggressive cancer called diffuse large B cell lymphoma, or DLBCL. Most DLBCL patients go into remission after treatment with the cancer drug Rituxan and a battery of chemotherapy, but about one-third don’t respond to that regimen. It is these patients, who only survive for about six months on average, that Kite’s treatment aims to help.
In the study, 76 percent of patients taking the drug, called KTE-C19, showed significant tumour shrinkage, including 47 percent who had no remaining signs of cancer at least three months after receiving the treatment, released Kite. Kite will continue to trial the treatment and expects to collect further data with six months of follow-up from 101 patients by the first quarter of 2017.
There are caveats to the positive news, the trial did not have a placebo arm and there were complications during the trial. There were two deaths during the trial period due to treatment-related side effects, the company said. The treatment also has potential to cause strong side-effects, including lower than normal white blood cell counts, anaemia and neurological toxicities.
Ben Hargreaves
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