Patient declared cancer free using Indian-made CAR-T cell therapy. Know what it is?

Feb 09,2024

A patient has become the first to be cured using India's CAR-T cell therapy, an indigenous cancer treatment, which was recently approved for commercial use by the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO).

The therapy in India is known to genetically reprogram a patient's immune system to fight cancer. The patient, Dr (Col) VK Gupta, a Delhi-based gastroenterologist, took this therapy by paying just Rs 42 lakh which would've otherwise cost him Rs 4 crore abroad.

The CAR-T cell therapy is a type of immunotherapy that involves genetically engineering a patient's T cells to attack cancer cells. T cells are a type of white blood cells that help the body fight infection.

In CAR-T cell therapy, T cells are taken from the patient and modified in the laboratory to express a special protein called a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR). It is then reinfused in the patient as this CAR protein helps the T cells recognise and fight the cancer cells.

In October 2023, the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO), India's drug regulator, approved the commercial use of NexCAR19, the first indigenously developed CAR-T cell therapy.

NexCAR19 is developed by ImmunoACT, a company incubated at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB) and Tata Memorial Hospital.

It is designed to treat B-cell cancers, such as leukaemia and lymphoma.

The therapy is now available in over 30 hospitals in more than 10 cities in India. Patients aged above 15, who are suffering from B-cell cancers are eligible for treatment.

Cancer has been a major public health concern and is a growing burden in India. The latest estimates suggest that new cancer diagnoses in the country reached nearly 1.6 million in 2023.

Despite cancer cases spanning the length and breadth of the country, new cancer treatments have emerged. However, these treatments are still inaccessible. CAR-T cell therapy is one treatment which has severe side effects and remains a highly expensive and inaccessible treatment for cancer.

In 2015, Dr Alka Dwivedi and her colleagues tried modifying CAR-T cells to carry a more human-like antibody. They developed India's indigenous CAR-T cell therapy called NexCAR19, which showed promising results for blood cancers like leukaemia and lymphoma.

NexCAR19 is also available at a reasonable cost and meets the needs of patients in India’s healthcare system.

Source: India Today