A privately held CAR-T cell cancer gene therapy biotechnology business, MedTherapy Biotechnology Inc., revealed that their technique may be able to drastically cut the time and expense required to produce CAR-T cell cancer gene therapy—roughly by 70%.
Its clinical development plan and strategies are being discussed at the BIOTECH SHOWCASE conference, which is taking place in San Francisco, CA, as part of the JPMorgan Chase Healthcare Conference.
“MedTherapy was founded with a mission to make the exorbitantly expensive CAR-T cell cancer gene therapy more affordable and accessible. We are very pleased to announce that our strategies have finally made this vision a reality”, “While CAR-T cell gene therapy for cancer has proven itself to be a miraculous life-saving therapy, however, its current exorbitant cost renders it unaffordable for many patients in United States and virtually all patients in developing countries. Together with our US and global partners, we are trying to change that paradigm by developing an integrated strategy for the next generation CAR-T cell therapy and manufacturing processes to dramatically reduce its cost.”
Bikash Verma, MD, DVM, CEO of MedTherapy Biotechnology
The production of CAR-T therapy takes four to six weeks, there is a lack of industry-wide capacity to scale up production, there is an acute shortage of the most important raw material, viral vectors, and patients relapse after receiving CAR-T cell therapy, among other problems that contribute to its high cost and complex manufacturing processes. While boosting its effectiveness has received a lot of attention, making it more accessible and affordable globally has not received the same amount of attention. That would require extensive innovation of the procedures, virus vectors, and production scaling all at once.
Therefore, to overcome the current existential constraints, MedTherapy has developed an integrated approach by developing three complementary strategies and infrastructures: to develop the next generation of more effective CAR-T therapy candidates; to build a global GMP grade commercial manufacturing facility with cost- and time-efficient technologies; and to develop the next generation of virus vector technology. Our integrated and creative approaches work well together to dramatically cut manufacturing costs and turnaround times, which in turn lowers the price of CAR-T cell gene therapy.
Our technique is being developed to produce CAR-T cells for cancer gene therapy in a matter of days as opposed to the typical four to six weeks for the industry. And at significantly lower expenses.
Dr. Daniel DeAngelo, Chief of the Division of Leukemia, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School has lauded MedTherapy’ s efforts to make CAR-T therapies more affordable and accessible globally. “CAR-T cell therapy offers many patients the only avenue towards a cure; therefore, CAR-T cell therapy needs to be made more affordable and readily accessible for cancer patients everywhere. To this effect, MedTherapy’ s mission and strategies will go a long way in helping our patients access this novel and disease modifying therapy.”
Integrated Medical Therapy
A full-spectrum, comprehensive, end-to-end CAR-T therapeutic biotech is called MedTherapy. We are creating more effective CAR-T cell therapies alongside our partners, as shown in pre-clinical evidence for haematological diseases, which are now entering Phase-I studies globally. It has constructed an international business manufacturing facility using cutting-edge technology.
Additionally, it has constructed a large-scale virus vector production facility with improved transfection and transduction capabilities. Our integrated strategy, which includes an effective product, a global manufacturing facility, and large-scale vector production, will result in more effective CAR-T therapy at a significantly lower cost and quicker turnaround time, as well as scaled up capacity, making it accessible to all eligible patients worldwide. We feel that the price of CAR-T cell therapy cannot be significantly decreased to make it cheap, especially in developing nations, without using such an integrated approach in partnership with international partners.
