NEW ORLEANS — Chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR T) therapy has achieved impressive outcomes in patients with hematologic cancers, but similar results for those with solid tumors have remained elusive.
Now, a new CAR T construct that targets the tumor-specific antigen claudin 6 (CLDN6) is showing promising preliminary activity against relapsed or refractory advanced solid tumors, especially testicular and ovarian cancers, early data show.
This novel CAR T therapy, delivered as monotherapy and in combination with an mRNA vaccine engineered to boost T-cell responses, showed "robust engraftment" of T cells 6 weeks after infusion, researchers reported in a phase 1 trial.
Among 14 evaluable patients with CLDN6-positive solid tumors, six experienced a partial response to therapy — four who received CAR T monotherapy, and two who received the combination CAR T agent and vaccine, dubbed BNT211.
"CLDN6 was never targeted before with cellular therapy, but in our study, this approach is already showing efficacy that may be better than the data from other CAR T trials in solid tumors," lead investigator Johan Haanen, MD, PhD, from the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam, said in a press release.
On April 10, Haanen presented early datafrom this first-in-human open-label, multicenter clinical trial at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2022.
