IIT Bombay's CAR-T cell therapy shows promising early signs of efficacy in blood cancer treatment

India’s first gene therapy, CAR-T cell therapy, developed at IIT Bombay has shown promising early signs of efficacy in a Phase I trial in TMC Mumbai.

CAR-T cell therapy developed by IIT Bombay is India’s first gene therapy. It is reportedly safe and has shown early signs of efficacy in a Phase I trial at the Tata Memorial Centre (TMC) in Mumbai. 

Nearly 14 months after the clinical trials of the indigenously developed CAR-T technology for blood cancer treatment were kicked off at TMC, researchers have concluded the first phase of trials and called the results “encouraging”, as reported by Hindustan Times.

The trials were conducted at the Advanced Centre for Treatment, Research and Education in Cancer (ACTREC), the research and development wing of TMC. This gene therapy was first time tested on patients in India.

“Phase I clinical trial data demonstrates that India’s first indigenously developed novel CAR-T Cell therapy is safe and shows promising early sign of efficacy in treating Lymphoma, a type of blood cancer,” said a statement released by IIT Bombay.

“The participants received autologous HCAR19 therapy. None of the participants had immune effector cell-associated neurotoxicity syndrome. Three out of ten participants had a complete response post-CAR-T cell therapy and none of the participants required ICU admission. There was no CAR-T treatment-related death. Overall, the novel humanized HCAR19 tested in Phase I clinical trials for adult lymphoma was found to be safe and has shown promising early signs of activity,” said Dr Hasmukh Jain, who presented the data at the Annual Symposium of Cell and Gene Therapy, CMC Vellore.

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