Jakub Svoboda, MD, on Promising Efficacy With huCART19-IL18 in NHL, CHL

"What is unique about this product is the expedited, 3-day manufacturing time. A lot of the traditional products that are currently available have an ex vivo expansion period that can take around 10 days... There’s been preclinical data from Penn, as well as from other groups, suggesting that the shorter time of manufacturing may result in an enriched product by having less mature, more naïve, and less exhausted T cells, which is what you would want to fight these lymphomas.”

A first-in-human trial (NCT04684563) of huCART19-IL18 has reported positive data on the 4th generation, autologous, anti-CD19 CAR and IL-18-expressing chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell product in patients with relapsed/refractory B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphomas (NHL) or chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).

These data were presented by Jakub Svoboda, MD, associate professor of medicine, University of Pennsylvania, at the 64th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting, held December 10-12, 2022, in New Orleans, Louisiana. CGTLive spoke with Svoboda to learn more about the data presented at ASH. He discussed the therapy’s tolerable toxicity profile and its 100% 3-month overall response rate in the evaluable patients treated so far.

Click here to read more coverage of the 2022 ASH meeting.

REFERENCE

Svoboda J, Gerson J, Landsburg D, et al. Interleukin-18 secreting autologous anti-CD19 CAR T-cells (huCART19-IL18) in patients with non-Hodgkin lymphomas relapsed or refractory to prior CAR T-cell therapy. Presented at: 64th ASH Annual Meeting, December 10-12, 2022, New Orleans, Louisiana.