Nick Boyle, PhD, on Advantages of In Vivo CAR Therapies

“We were treating patients with hemophilia, with intravenous (IV) delivered vector, and we observed immune cell transduction after IV delivery. And with the advent of ex vivo CAR-T therapies... We realized we could actually administer these CAR therapies directly in vivo; generate them directly in vivo. And if we could achieve that, then we could address many of the patient unmet needs that exist today.”

While autologous chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapies have shown some great initial success, patient access has remained limited due to the ex vivo manufacturing processes many of these therapies use, and most are only available in handful of centers of excellence.

CGTLive spoke with Nick Boyle, PhD, chief executive officer, Abintus Bio, at the 7th Annual CAR-TCR Summit 2022, held September 19-22 in Boston, Massachusetts, about the company’s approach to addressing this unmet need through the development of in vivo CAR-T therapies. Boyle discussed the company’s inspiration for their approach to directly reprogramming immune cells within patients’ blood and described the company’s technique for manufacturing sufficient amounts for commercial scale. He also explained the company’s single-particle modular platform technology in detail and underscored the importance of exploring appropriate approaches to scaling for manufacturing early on in the development process of new therapies.

Boyle also talked about methods for bringing cell therapies to underserved communities of patients. He discussed the importance of engaging clinical trial sites beyond the centers of excellence and how community hospitals participating in phase 1 programs can increase awareness and enrollment.