Terese Hammond, MD, on Promising Data With iNKT Cells in COVID-associated ARDS
The director of the CCU/ICU at Saint John’s Health Center discussed updated data from a phase 1/2 trial of agenT-797.
“The mortality in critical illness is much higher than for any cancers these days. In fact, 30 to 40% of people who develop severe ARDS die across the board, 30% of sepsis patients die, and up to 90% of some populations of COVID patientssuccumb to the disease. These are all figures that we sort of forget about - people in our ICUshave much higher mortality rates than many of our cancer patients these days.”
AgenT-797 (MiNK Therapeutics), an allogeneic off-the-shelf invariant natural killer T-cell therapy was well-tolerated and improved survival in patients with COVID-19-associated acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) in addition to mechanical ventilation or ECMO. Updated data from a phase 1/2 trial (NCT04582201) were presented by Terese Hammond, MD, pulmonologist and medical director, cardiac care unit/intensive care unit, Saint John’s Health Center, at the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer’s (SITC) November 2022 meeting
CGTLive spoke with Hammond to learn more about the study and the safety and efficacy data seen so far. She discussed agenT-797 and its advantages as an allogeneic cell therapy and also stressed the potential of cell therapies in other fields besides oncology.
