29 July 2019 - The search for more effective and less toxic therapies for cancer has occupied scientists for decades. Recently approved treatments involving the genetic modification of a patient’s own T cells to better target cancer cells are an important advance in cancer treatment, thereby sparing patients less effective therapies while offering a meaningful chance at remission.

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells involve the ex vivo transduction of T cells so they express a receptor on their surface that both is specific for a tumor antigen and contains T-cell activation domains such that engagement of the receptor by tumor antigen results in activation of the T cell against the tumor cell. 

The 2 approved CAR T-cell products include axicabtagene ciloleucel, manufactured by Kite Pharma, and tisagenlecleucel, a Novartis product.

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