A type of treatment which helps a cancer patient's immune system to fight blood cancer has been approved for use across the United Kingdom, having been trialled in two clinical studies coordinated by the CR UK & UCL Cancer Trials Centre.
Adult patients with an aggressive form of leukaemia will be able to receive a breakthrough immunotherapy, pioneered in CTC-led trials ALLCAR19 and CARPALL. The CAR T cell therapy – known as ‘obe-cel’ and marketed as Aucatzyl – involves taking a patient’s immune cells and reprogramming them in a lab to identify and target their cancer, before returning them to the body as ‘living medicine’.
The therapy is designed to reduce immune-related side effects and remain active for longer in patients with blood cancers, helping to address two key challenges seen with earlier CAR T-cell therapies.
NHS England today announced that the personalised therapy would be available on the NHS within weeks through specialist centres.
The treatment will be available to people aged 26 and over with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia which has returned or not responded to previous treatment.
It is estimated that it could be administered to around 50 patients each year in England.
In a clinical trial, 77% of patients saw their cancer enter remission after treatment with obe-cel, with half of those showing no signs of detectable cancer after three and a half years.
More information, including an interview with 19-year-old student Harry, who was treated with obe-cel as part of clinical trial in 2024, can be read over at UCL news.
Image: T cells surround a cancer cell. Credit: Alex Ritter, Jennifer Lippincott Schwartz and Gillian Griffiths, National Institutes of Health (CC BY 2.0).