New hope for patients fighting aggressive blood cancers
Sponsored by and provided by Allogene Therapeutics
For most of the past 100 years, doctors typically had three ways to fight cancer: remove it surgically, destroy it with radiation, or treat it with chemotherapy. For many patients, these approaches can be relatively effective. But these methods often fail in patients with more aggressive and potentially deadly forms of cancer. Over the last decade, determined researchers have made significant progress in the effort to improve treatment options for these patients.
One such advancement is an immunotherapy known as autologous chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy or autologous CAR T. First approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2017 for certain blood cancers, CAR T therapy has fundamentally changed how hematologic cancers are treated. Today, there are six approved autologous CAR T therapies available for a growing number of blood cancers, including leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma. But as excitement around CAR T grows, so does a problem that impacts healthcare providers and thousands of patients: limited access to this treatment.
The problem isn't the therapy. It's the bespoke process required to deliver the therapy to the patient. Autologous CAR T therapy requires a time-consuming, individualized manufacturing process. That means patients find themselves on waiting lists as their health deteriorates, and doctors have to make difficult decisions about who gets treatment and who must wait.
New Clinical Trial Comes to Rocky Mountain Region
Researchers at the Colorado Blood Cancer Institute, affiliated with the Sarah Cannon Cancer Institute at Presbyterian St. Lukes Medical Center in Denver, are on the forefront of finding a solution to this complex problem: next-generation allogeneic, or what some call "off-the-shelf" CAR T products. Unlike autologous therapy, these "off-the-shelf" investigational CAR T products can be produced in large batches and are readily available so patients can potentially be treated in days rather than weeks or months.
Dr. Michael Tees, associate member physician and director of the Lymphoma Program at the Colorado Blood Cancer Institute, was an early pioneer of the autologous therapy. But he sees even greater potential in allogeneic CAR T products.
"When it comes to patients with limited options, the logistical and manufacturing challenges of autologous CAR T forces them to wait, adding to the already significant stress of being a patient with cancer," Dr. Tees said. "The research we're doing right now is exploring how that delay might be reduced significantly with an allogeneic CAR T product."
According to the American Cancer Society, more than 1,000 people in Colorado will die of blood cancers this year. [1] Researchers at the Colorado Blood Cancer Institute have been at the forefront of CAR T research for more than a decade and are among the select sites in the U.S. offering a new clinical trial of an "off-the-shelf" CAR T investigational product. The trial builds on earlier studies presented at a major oncology meeting that showed these products could deliver results similar to currently approved autologous CAR T treatments.
This newer research will be especially critical for patients with late-stage cancers that are no longer responding to treatment. At these clinical trial sites, eligible patients, including those who are unable to gain access to autologous CAR T, may be able to get this investigational treatment. Most importantly, success in these clinical trials could support a potential FDA approval and expand access to this treatment option for people with cancer in ways never before possible.
The Colorado Blood Cancer Institute is one of the few centers in the United States investigating allogeneic CAR T products, and it's also one of only three treatment centers authorized to administer CAR T in Colorado. [2] Colorado Blood Cancer Institute serves patients from as far away as Nebraska, Wyoming, New Mexico, Kansas, Montana, in addition to Colorado, an important option since cell therapy is largely inaccessible in many parts of the country.
The delays and the inaccessibility makes the research going on at Colorado Blood Cancer Institute and other locations in the United States even more critical. Without new treatment advances, the waiting lists for autologous CAR T – impacting patients directly – are likely to get longer.
People with questions about the trial can go to the trial website here for more information, or they can call (720) 754-4835.