Omid Hamid, MD, on Clinic Experience With TIL vs CAR-T Therapy Administration

"[Until now], TIL therapy was not available to a majority of patients. At this point, Iovance has approved more than 30 treatment centers across the United States to make lifileucel and administer these therapies... Even if patients are not candidates for these therapies, the new and novel T cell engagers and CAR T-cell therapies and bispecifics allow the same type of benefit for our patients. So, I encourage any patients to discuss with their primary oncologists a referral for these clinical trials.”

A big step forward in the treatment landscape for solid tumors was taken in February 2024 with the FDA approval of Iovance Biotherapeutics’ lifileucel, marketed under the name Amtagvi, the first cell therapy approved for solid tumors. The tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) therapy was approved for the treatment of adult patients with unresectable or metastatic melanoma previously treated with a PD-1 blocking antibody, or treated with a BRAF inhibitor with or without a MEK inhibitor in the instance that the patient is if BRAF V600 positive with a price tag of $515,000 yearly.

CGTLive® spoke with Omid Hamid, MD, professor and director, Melanoma Program, Cedars-Sinai and chief, Translational Research and Immunotherapy, The Angeles Clinic and Research Institute, to learn more about the approval and shift of cell therapy into solid tumors. He discussed the clinic experience with administrating lifileucel compared with administering chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies and how post-infusion care may be simpler with lifileucel. He also discussed other investigations into lifileucel for other types of melanomas, including uveal melanoma. Hamid served as a principal investigator on the pivotal trials (NCT02360579; NCT05727904) of lifileucel that supported the accelerated approval. 

REFERENCE

FDA grants accelerated approval to lifileucel for unresectable or metastatic melanoma. News release. FDA. February 16, 2024. Accessed February 16, 2024.