Cell Therapy’s Promise for Canadians Must Include Access

An emerging form of immunotherapy, called adoptive cell transfer, has the potential to transform the way in which cancers are treated. Adoptive cell therapy involves taking a patient’s immune cells from their blood, and modifying them in a lab so they can target cancer cells more effectively — enhancing the patient’s immune system to fight cancer.

In the seven years since the initial Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy trials were started, two of these therapies are already being used to treat some aggressive forms of leukemia and lymphoma. However, these therapies are very costly and only available to a small number of Canadian patients. Researchers are considering the possibility that CAR T-cells could displace current standard treatments, such as stem cell transplantation and chemotherapy.

Importantly, there is a need to collaborate nationally to allow better and more cost-effective approaches to be tested rapidly through an established network of institutions and researchers. The Canadian Cancer Trials Group (CCTG), located at Queen’s University, is a national cancer trials research group, with a network of over 80 hospitals and research institutions, that has been designing and conducting trials for almost 40 years. Cooperative research groups like CCTG, with a proven track record of leading immunotherapy clinical trials, are ideally situated to bring stakeholders together to support emerging cellular therapy initiatives.