Big Pharma is pouring billions into the next generation of cell therapy, but are we upgrading the engine or just the chassis?
This BioSpace piece by Tristan Cesar Mañalac, “Lilly, AbbVie climb aboard in vivo CAR T train—but safety remains a hurdle” highlights a massive M&A wave as giants like Eli Lilly, AbbVie, and AstraZeneca push into in vivo and allogeneic CAR-T. The industry is focused on solving the logistics: shifting manufacturing inside the body or off the shelf to cut costs, bypass lymphodepletion, and increase access. As I mentioned in an earlier post, NanoKar Therapeutics applauds every effort that improves access and decreases costs of this life saving therapy.
However, as H.C. Wainwright senior biotech analyst Mitchell Kapoor points out in the article: “Convenience and efficacy won’t be enough to wow investors unless safety is pristine.”
Safety is the biggest challenge facing all cell therapies, regardless of whether the CAR-T cells are produced as they are now through the autologous process, or allogenic, or in vivo. It is a factor in limiting access to this life saving treatment.
The ITAM sequence acts as the signaling engine of a CAR-T cell. Every approved CAR-T uses the same legacy CD3ζ ITAM sequence. NanoKar Therapeutics has re-engineered the ITAM sequence into specific variants to reduce toxicity, improve persistence, and to have effect on solid tumors. If you don’t rewrite the biological programming, specifically the ITAM signaling sequence, you are simply building a faster assembly line for a product that still faces severe toxicity, lack of persistence, and an inability to penetrate solid tumors. Changing the delivery vehicle (in vivo or allogeneic) doesn’t fix a potentially flawed payload.
At NanoKar Therapeutics, we are engineering a safer, more effective cell from the inside out. Unless you change the engine, you end up with the same CAR.
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