China Treats 3 Patients with First Cell Therapy Using Donor Cells

The patients in the China trial, who all had autoimmune diseases, are in remission, raising hopes for scaling up CAR-T therapies

Until now, the handful of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapies to make it to market have primarily been for patients with rare blood cancers using their own cells. While the drugs have been effective--and in some cases led to cures--the cost and time of developing these personalized treatments has greatly restricted the number of patients able to access them.

This week, Chinese researchers reported that they successfully treated patients using healthy blood stem cells from an outside donor. Two of the patients had systemic sclerosis and a third had a type of autoimmune myopathy that targets skeletal muscle tissue. All are doing well.

The trial using so-called allogeneic donors is the first to report results for autoimmune diseases; it could signal a move toward mass production of such therapies.

To read more about this exciting development in CAR-T therapy check out this news story in Nature.