Ivan Horak, MD, on Early Clinical Efficacy of Allogeneic CD30.CAR EBVST Cell Therapy in Lymphomas

"Preliminary activity is very encouraging. These are heavily pretreated patients with Hodgkin lymphoma. In 14 patients from which data were presented there's 6 complete remissions and 6 partial remissions. So, the overall response rate is very encouraging and you have to consider that it’s a very low dose, under 40 million cells...In general, with detection of the cells, cell expansion is very rapid and very short, and doesn't really reachthe levels we see with autologous cells.”

Tessa Therapeutics presented data on 2 of its chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy candidates from the phase 2 CHARIOT trial (NCT04268706) of autologous CD30.CAR-T cells (TT11) for relapsed/refractory classical Hodgkin lymphoma, and the phase 1 BESTA trial (NCT04288726) of allogeneic CD30.CAR EBVST cells (TT11X) for CD30-positive lymphomas, at the 64th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting, held December 10-12, 2022, in New Orleans, Louisiana.

CGTLive spoke with Horak to learn more about the BESTA and CHARIOT studies and the updated data from each. He also touched on Tessa’s shift from autologous to allogeneic therapies and the de-prioritization of CHARIOT and search for partnering opportunities to continue TT11’s development.

Click here to read more coverage of the ASH 2022 meeting.

REFERENCES

1. Quach D, Ramos C, Ganesh H, et al. CD30.CAR-modified Epstein-Barr virus-specific T cells (CD30.CAR EBVSTs) provide a safe and effective off-the-shelf therapy for patients with CD30-positive lymphoma. Presented at: 64th ASH Annual Meeting, December 10-12, 2022, New Orleans, Louisiana. Poster #167
2. Ahmed S, Flinn I, Mei M, et al. Updated results and correlative analysis: Autologous CD30.CAR-T-cell therapy in patients with relapsed or refractory classical Hodgkin lymphoma (CHARIOT trial). Presented at: 64th ASH Annual Meeting, December 10-12, 2022, New Orleans, Louisiana. Poster #3338