Exciting Results for the Potential of T-Cell Therapy in DLBCL

Impressive results from an early clinical trial involving aggressive B-cell lymphomas and engineered autologous T cell therapy have been published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Engineered autologous T cell therapy involves genetically modifying a patient's T cells to express a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR), in this case on that is designed to target CD19, a protein expressed on the cell surface of B cell lymphomas and leukemias.

Kite Pharma, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing engineered autologous T cell therapy (eACT™) is developing its CAR-based product, currently known as KTE-C19, in use with patients who have diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and similarly aggressive B-cell lymphomas.

According to the findings from the ongoing Phase 1-2a clinical trial, in 12 out of 13 evaluable patients with advanced B-cell malignancies, administration of anti-CD19 CAR T cells resulted in complete remission in eight patients and partial remission in four patients, representing an overall objective response rate of 92 percent.

Of seven evaluable patients with chemotherapy-refractory DLBCL, four achieved complete remission, three of which are ongoing with durations ranging from 9 to 22 months.

"To date, Kite and the NCI have conducted an extensive program to investigate personalized T cell immunotherapies for blood cancers and solid tumors, including in patients with refractory DLBCL," said David Chang, M.D., Ph.D., Kite Pharma's Executive Vice President, Research and Development, and Chief Medical Officer. "Both the high overall response rate and the durability of the complete remissions are noteworthy, and we believe our anti-CD19-CAR T cell approach holds great potential for the treatment of B cell malignancies, including those with aggressive, resistant disease for which there are no viable treatment options."

Source: Kite Pharma