Researchers have been describing their excitement at preliminary clinical trial results that show a promising curative potential using immune therapies to treat a variety of blood cancers , leading some experts to call the so called CAR - T treatments ‘ revolutionary’ . The autologous CAR-T approach that relies on patient cells is simple and broadly understood. The scientists removed some of our body ’s immune cells , or T - Cells before re - engineering them to kill the cells , before infusing them back into the patient . In a small group of patients with late - stage acute lymphoblastic leukaemia ( ALL ) , given just weeks to live , the CAR - T cells eliminated symptoms in 94 % of the participants . Commenting on the results Stanley Riddell of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center said " This is unprecedented in medicine , to be honest , to get response rates in this range in these very advanced patients , Although there is much excitement surrounding the T - Cell therapy space , it is important to remember these results are preliminary , unpublished and may not be the ultimate performance of the drug . Blood cancers are typically the first to be tested with new therapies , as they are typically more accessible than solid tumours . It is frequently , though not always , difficult to translate results seen in blood cancers to solid tumour cancers as the latter ’s microenvironment has the potential to “ get in the way ” of the drugs . Publicly - traded companies at the forefront of CAR - T cell therapy include : Novartis , Bluebird Bio , Juno Therapeutics and Kite Pharma . Novartis ' CTL019 therapy is expected to be the first to market , seeking FDA approval next year for use in children with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia ( ALL).One issue facing the proliferation of CAR - T therapies is their complex , time - consuming and expensive manufacturing process , which requires two weeks per patient , and is difficult to run in parallel . Pricing of CAR - T therapies is also a difficult equation , with initial cost - per - patient expected to be in the region of $ 250,000 to $ 450,000 . Standard CAR - T therapies require the donation of T - cells from the target patient , before they are modified and then re - infused into the same patient . There are , however early stage therapies that use gene editing technology to alter the T - cells in a manner that allows them to be donated from other donors , foremost of which is Pfizer & Cellectis ’ UCART19 technology .
Researchers have been describing their excitement at preliminary clinical trial results that show a promising curative potential using immune therapies to treat a variety of blood cancers , leading some experts to call the so called CAR - T treatments ‘ revolutionary’ . The scientists removed some of our body ’s immune cells , or T - Cells before re - engineering them to kill the cells , before infusing them back into the patient . In a small group of patients with late - stage acute lymphoblastic leukaemia ( ALL ) , given just weeks to live , the CAR - T cells eliminated symptoms in 94 % of the participants . Commenting on the results Stanley Riddell of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center said " This is unprecedented in medicine , to be honest , to get response rates in this range in these very advanced patients , Although there is much excitement surrounding the T - Cell therapy space , it is important to remember these results are preliminary , unpublished and may not be the ultimate performance of the drug . Blood cancers are typically the first to be tested with new therapies , as they are typically more accessible than solid tumours . It is frequently , though not always , difficult to translate results seen in blood cancers to solid tumour cancers as the latter ’s microenvironment has the potential to “ get in the way ” of the drugs . Publicly - traded companies at the forefront of CAR - T cell therapy include : Novartis , Bluebird Bio , Juno Therapeutics and Kite Pharma . Novartis ' CTL019 therapy is expected to be the first to market , seeking FDA approval next year for use in children with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia ( ALL).One issue facing the proliferation of CAR - T therapies is their complex , time - consuming and expensive manufacturing process , which requires two weeks per patient , and is difficult to run in parallel . Pricing of CAR - T therapies is also a difficult equation , with initial cost - per - patient expected to be in the region of $ 250,000 to $ 450,000 . Standard CAR - T therapies require the donation of T - cells from the target patient , before they are modified and then re - infused into the same patient . There are , however early stage therapies that use gene editing technology to alter the T - cells in a manner that allows them to be donated from other donors , foremost of which is Pfizer & Cellectis ’ UCART19 technology .