Dr. Gary Gilliland President of Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Research Cancer Center (Fred Hutch) www.fredhutch.org and Dr. David Maloney, Center’s Director of Cellular Immunotherapy spoke at a National Press Club Newsmaker event November 1, 2016. They came to announce the establishment of a first of its kind immunotherapy treatment center housed at Fred Hutch called the “Bezos Family Immunotherapy Clinic”.
Immunotherapy showing promise as a cure for many cancers that up-to-now have eluded doctors and patients which refers to treatments that harness the body’s own immune system to fight cancer. Today, primary treatments for cancer include radiation and chemotherapy that are highly toxic and can have a negative effect on a patient’s quality of life while patients undergo treatments. By contrast, immunotherapy allows patients to undergo treatment without similar side effects.
Much of the focus at the new clinic will involve therapies involving T cells which play a central role in the immune system. Fred Hutch scientists have been genetically modifying these cells so that the cells will more effectively target cancers. First, the immune cells will be taken from a patient and then specially engineered in a cell-processing facility. The last step is to re-infuse the cells to attack the patient’s cancer.
Fred Hutch’s genetically engineered T-cell products differ from those products being tested at most other major research centers. T-cells can be programmed to carry a synthetic molecule known as Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) which enables T cells to target and eliminate cancer cells.
While a number of institutions produce CAR T cells, Fred Hutch was the first center where nonessential immune cells are removed, resulting in a product with a defined amount of engineered helpers and killer T cells. This approach increases the growth of cancer-fighting cells in the patient after infusion and potentially decreases side effects.
At the new treatment center, patients will receive Fred Hutch’s novel immunotherapies for cancer at roughly double the capacity that existed before the clinic opened. Importantly, intensive monitoring will enable researchers to better understand why some patients respond to treatments while others do not respond.
Now with the opening of the clinic, researchers will be able to launch more T-cell therapy clinical trials for cancer patients. The plans are to conduct an estimated 12 immunotherapy trials in 2017, more than doubling the number of trials running this year.
The clinic was made possible by support from SCCA www.seattlecca.org and Juno Therapeutics www.junotherapeutics.com, a Seattle-based biotech company focused on developing cellular immunotherapies aimed at curing a broader range of cancers. Fred Hutch has licensed intellectual property to Juno for potential treatments that the company seeks to commercialize.
Fred Hutch is always looking for commercialization opportunities to license technology. The goal is to keep therapy cost effective by commercializing the process so that the therapy can treat as many patients as possible. So far, Fred Hutch has spun out 42 licensing deals, and participates in other licensing deals dealing with blood cancers.
Dr. Gilliland and Dr. Maloney emphasized how Fred Hutch is calling for the FDA www.fda.gov to expedite procedures to make immunotherapy drugs more readily available to patients and for FDA to continue to support rapid progress related to drug, devices, biomarkers, and diagnostic testing approvals.