Indigenous CAR-T cell therapy to be soon available in India

The first CAR-T cell therapy to treat cancers of the blood and lymphatic system is to be available in India early next year, offering hope to patients who can’t afford to travel abroad for the expensive treatment.

It generally costs between $384,367 to $512,491 per patient, but now treatment will be available at between $25,624 and $38,437 per patient in India.

An Indian Institute of Technology (IIT-B), Bombay spin-off company, ImmunoACT, plans to make the treatment available at a fraction of what it would cost in the USA for specific types of cancer.

The indigenously developed CAR-T cell therapy was the result of eight years of research, according to Rahul Purwar, a senior faculty member at IIT-Bombay and founder and chief executive of ImmunoACT.

Incubated at the Society of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at IIT-B, ImmunoACT has now partnered with Hyderabad-based Laurus Labs.

The Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) and Department of Biotechnology (DBT) have launched specialized calls for proposals in the last two years to promote and support the development of CAR-T cell technology against cancer and other diseases.

According to a DBT official, the Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-cell Therapy (CAR-T) is emerging as a breakthrough treatment for cancer, and clinical trials have shown promising results, especially in patients with acute lymphocytic leukemia.

Though this technology has a remarkable therapeutic potential for cancer patients, at present this technology is not available in India and the challenge is to develop this technology in cost-effective manner, he said.

CAR-T cells were designed and manufactured at IIT Bombay's Bioscience and Bioengineering (BSBE) department, which performed the first CAR-T cell therapy at the Tata Memorial Center in Mumbai.

India's National Biopharma Mission is also supporting the development of lentiviral vector manufacturing facilities to package plasmids used to transfer modified T-cells inside the body, cGMP facilities for T-cell transduction and expansion for CAR T-cell manufacturing to two other organizations.