Novel cancer therapy kick starts clinical trials

pharmafile | July 6, 2021 | News story | Manufacturing and Production |  oncology 

The first patient has been dosed in Phase 1/2 trials investigating a new form of cancer therapy, gamma delta TCR cell therapy, clinical stage company Gadeta has announced.

The therapy, GDT-002, is a cell therapy product utilising specific γδ TCR for the treatment of a wide range of cancers, looking in particular at multiple myeloma (MM) for this trial.

The Phase 1/2 multicentre study is being run in collaboration with the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Mass General Brigham Cancer Care with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, evaluating safety, tolerability and preliminary efficacy of GDT-002.

The target recognized by GDT-002 is upregulated in a wide range of liquid and solid tumours, presenting great therapeutic potential. Preclinical studies have shown that GDT-002 selectively kills primary naïve and relapsed/refractory MM cells and has an activity comparable, in MM animal models, to that of BCMA CAR-T. Importantly, a broad spectrum of liquid and solid tumours is recognized by GDT-002.

Dr Marco Londei, Chief Executive Officer of Gadeta, said: “The initiation of our Phase 1/2 trial of GDT-002 and the dosing of our first patient are a transformational milestone for Gadeta in its mission to provide novel treatments to patients with cancer, including MM.

“Despite the successes with CAR-T and related therapies, patients often develop resistance to currently approved treatments. We believe GDT-002 offers potential as a possible new treatment option for patients with multiple myeloma and potentially other liquid and solid cancers.”

In a release Gadeta stated that they were currently working on a pipeline of cell therapies, utilising tumour specific γδ TCRs, with the aim to bring this pipeline of selected γδ TCR-based products to the clinic, with a focus on solid tumours.

Kat Jenkins