J. Andrew Livingston, MD, on Potential Advantages of TCR NK Therapy for Synovial Sarcoma and MRCL

"In prior work done with Dr. Katy Rezvani’s group at MD Anderson, when they developed iNK CARs, there was a favorable safety profile, especially compared to CAR-based therapies. They didn’t see much in the way of CRS, neurotoxicity, or GVHD. That's another potential advantage of NK-based therapies... So, it’s off the shelf, potent, and hopefully has less toxicity. Lastly, one of the unique aspects of using NK cells is that we can sort of have multiple mechanisms, anticancer immune mechanisms, both using the endogenous NK receptor, as well as the introduced TCR. So, we hope that this may improve the potency and also the persistence of this type of cell product.”

The FDA cleared MD Anderson and Syena’s, a subsidiary of Replay, investigational new drug (IND) application for their T-cell receptor natural killer (TCR NK) cell therapy NY-ESO-1 TCR/IL-15 NK, which is intended to treat advanced synovial sarcoma (SS) and myxoid/round cell liposarcoma (MRCL) in June 2023. J. Andrew Livingston, associate professor in the department of sarcoma medical oncology and the department of pediatrics patient care at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, will serve as the study’s primary investigator.

CGTLive spoke with Livingston to learn more about the upcoming trial. He discussed challenges with developing therapies and specifically cell therapies in the field of sarcoma as well as potential advantages of TCR NK therapies compared with chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies in the field.

REFERENCE

MD Anderson and Replay announce FDA clearance of IND application for first-in-class TCR NK cell therapy for sarcoma. News release. MD Anderson. June 20, 2023. https://www.mdanderson.org/newsroom/novel-tcr-nk-cell-therapy-sarcoma-receives-ind-clearance-fda.h00-159619434.html