Cancer is most deadly disease affecting million of people around the world.Last year around 31 therapies for 16 different cancer was approved by FDA. Among all these Kymriah and Yescarta First gene therapy for cancer was approved by FDA. Studies proven that gene therapy has great potential to transform cancer care.I agree with this. But most challenging part of this therapy "COST".How do we overcome this crisis cost Vs right therapy specially in developing countries?
Right now, CAR T-cell therapy is strictly personalized medicine, as we have to collect the patient blood samples to modify the T-cells. But there is much ongoing research focusing on trying to achieve the same results in vivo without having to take T-cells out of the body. With the rise of CRISPR tech, and many other nanomedical advancements, I feel strongly that it will be possible for us to have an injection/infusion of a standardized therapeutic that can modify T-cells in our bodies directly. In this case, only the dosing would be personalized, which is common with many drugs already in clinical use. I think the cost will go down significantly once we eliminate the need for blood draws and ex vivo modifications.
But we also have to keep in mind that solid tumors are drastically different from non-solid tumors. CAR T-cells have not shown too much efficacy in solid tumors, so we will have to develop novel strategies and optimal co-treatment options.
Then how can we overcome this problem specially lag time for preparing T cell bag if disease advancing is very fast @joe graymer
Evidently, I have to declare an interest in this subject but please visit our website (http://www.cellectis.com/) to learn how off-the-shelf, allogeneic CAR-T cells have the potential to reduce lead times and costs.
Good Intiative.I think it's very cool solution for lead times.Thank you for sharing this info @Robert Leach
One possible solution would be to enable the point-of-care manufacture of CAR T cells, i.e., at the cancer center, utilzing an automated closed system device. Current methods of manufacture call for shipping back and forth from a cancer center to central manufacturing center back to cancer center. Current manufacturing utilizes semi-automated methods with a manual labor component. POC delivery would lower costs, and empower the cancer centers. While I work at a company that has such a device, i.e., the CliniMACS Prodigy, this device was featured in all three of my CAR T cell company business plans, when I had no association with my current employer. It makes sense.
CAR-T therapy should only be an option for a small subpopulation of patients that will not respond to first or second line treatment. It might also be cost-efficient to replace costly treatments like stem cell transplantations with CAR-T therapy with a higher potential of a good outcome for the patient.
Thank you for sharing your insights.I completely agree with your statement.@ Ronald Dudek
Yes surely it replaces the stem cell therapy and CAR-T cell thearpy only for some population to treat cetrain cencer (i.e ALL). Do you think if we maximize CAR-T cell therapy for most of cancer covering millions of people will reduce the COST? @Mattias Andersson
I Think that like in many fields a plethora of different treatments will evolve best suited for the patient and the lowest cost for society. Personalized medicin with evaluating the genetics of both the patient and the specific cancer tissue will be tools to suggest the optimal treatment.
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