Allogene Therapeutics on Wednesday released data on the success of it’s off-the-shelf CAR-T cell therapy for an aggressive form of B-cell lymphoma blood cancer. The results showing some patients experienced complete remission. The stock $ALLO surged over 50% on the release.
Allogene Therapeutics on Wednesday released data on the success of it’s off-the-shelf CAR-T cell therapy for an aggressive form of B-cell lymphoma blood cancer. The results showing some patients experienced complete remission. The stock $ALLO surged over 50% on the release.
Allogene’s new data are preliminary but important because they represent potential progress for the CAR-T field. If successful, the Allogene treatment, called ALLO-501, could be widely available and allow patients with advanced blood cancer to be treated on demand. Today’s bespoke CAR-Ts, by comparison, must be genetically engineered from each patient’s own cells.
Market Summary > Allogene Therapeutics Inc NASDAQ: ALLO
After hours $46.57 +15.59 (+50.32%)
$30.98 USD −1.56 (4.79%) Closed: May 13, 2020
- ALLO-501 in Combination with ALLO-647 Based Lymphodepletion Regimen was Well Tolerated With No Dose-Limiting Toxicities or Evidence of Graft-vs-Host Disease
- Abstract Based on Data Cutoff in January 2020 Represents Limited Data Set of Nine Evaluable Patients Treated at Lower Dose (39mg) ALLO-647; Three Patients Achieved a Complete Response (CR)
- Results from Additional Evaluable Patients Including Those Treated at Higher Dose (90 mg) ALLO-647 Will Be Presented at the Virtual ASCO Meeting on May 29, 2020
- Allogene Continues Study Enrollment to Optimize Lymphodepletion
The ASCO abstract includes preliminary data on the first nine patients treated with escalating doses of ALLO-501 and lower dose (39mg) ALLO-647. No dose limiting toxicities or graft-vs-host disease (GvHD) was observed. The most common Grade (Gr) ≥ 3 adverse events were neutropenia (55.6%), leukopenia (33.3%) and anemia (22.2%). Two patients (22.2%) developed cytokine release syndrome (one Gr1 and one Gr2) that resolved within 72 hours without steroids or tocilizumab. One patient developed Gr1 neurotoxicity that resolved without treatment. One patient developed upper respiratory tract infection (Gr2), CMV (Gr3) and EBV viremia (Gr1), which all resolved. One patient had a Gr2 infusion reaction to ALLO-647 which resolved with antihistamines
In this limited dataset with a small number of patients, the overall response rate (ORR) was 78% (95% exact CI: 40%, 97%) with three complete responses (CR) and four partial responses (PR). As of the January 2020 data cutoff, there was a median follow up of 2.7 months with four patients in ongoing response and three patients having progressed at 2, 4 and 6 months.
Autologous CAR T Therapy – The First Revolution in Cell Therapy Immunotherapy
The use of therapies that engineer a patient’s immune system to fight cancer – has become an important cancer treatment option along with surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy and targeted therapies. One immunotherapy approach, called autologous chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy, or AutoCAR TTM therapy, involves collecting a patient’s white blood cells, including T cells, sending them to a manufacturing facility and genetically engineering the T cells to recognize and kill cancer cells.
The reprogrammed cells are then sent back and administered to the patient. This approach produced remarkable responses in some patients for whom all other treatments had stopped working. Recognizing the clinical benefits, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved two autologous CAR T cell therapies for patients with certain types of hematologic cancers: relapsed or refractory acute lymphoblastic leukemia and relapsed or refractory large B-cell lymphoma.
Autologous CAR T Therapy – The First Revolution
About Allogene
Allogene Therapeutics is a clinical stage biotechnology company pioneering the development of allogeneic CAR T (AlloCAR TTM) therapies for cancer. Led by a world-class management team with significant experience in cell therapy, we are developing a pipeline of “off-the-shelf” CAR T cell therapy candidates with the goal of delivering readily available cell therapy faster, more reliably and at greater scale to more patients.
We BELIEVE We believe the next revolution in cancer treatment is the development of AlloCAR TTM therapies engineered from the T cells of healthy donors. These off-the-shelf CAR T therapies enhanced by gene editing could be the next most important breakthrough in the field. Our mission is to catalyze this immune cell therapy approach and deliver AlloCARsTM to patients with hematologic cancers and solid tumors to make a difference in their lives.(From Website)
Source: Allogene
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