Dr. Smith Discusses Novel CAR T-Cell Therapies for Myeloma

Eric Smith, MD, PhD, medical oncologist, Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK) Cancer Center, discusses novel chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies in development for the treatment of patients with multiple myeloma.

Smith says that he spends most of his time in the laboratory, where he makes novel CAR T-cell designs that are aimed at increasing persistence. In myeloma, the CAR T-cell therapy with the most data is bb2121, which has been studied in the relapsed population in US-based clinical trials.

Another novel therapy is JCARH125, which is progressing in clinical trials now, although the results have yet to be reported. JCARH125 is a human-derived CAR T-cell therapy, which may limit the patient's immune response against the CAR T cell, Smith explains.

Other things that are being looked at for the next generation of CAR T-cell therapies include targeting more than 1 target with the same CAR vector. At MSK, Smith and his colleagues have created “armored CAR T cells,” which are modified to not only encode for the CAR, but also for a second gene that encodes a protein. This gives the T cells a further advantage to eradicate the myeloma in the immunosuppressive microenvironment, Smith says.