July 13, 2018

CAR-T: The Future Roadmap of The USD 15 Billion+ Opportunity

By Arun Gupta Biologics, Cell Therapies, Future Perspectives, Immunotherapy, Oncology, Uncategorized 0 Comments

Although cancer therapeutics continue to be one of the most active areas in terms of drug development, there is still a significant unmet need in this domain. Conventional cancer treatments, such as chemotherapy, surgery and radiation therapy, have demonstrated very limited efficacy in late-stage cancers. Amidst the current initiatives to develop more targeted anti-cancer therapies, chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapy has emerged as a potent and viable therapeutic intervention to eradicate tumour cells, with minimal side effects. It is based on the principle of harnessing the innate potential of the immune system to target and destroy diseased cells. There are certain key characteristics that render CAR-T cells suitable for use as effective therapeutic tools; these include target specificity, adaptability and the capability to retain immunologic memory.

With 2 approved therapies and over 365 clinical / preclinical product candidates, the CAR-T cell therapies pipeline has evolved significantly over the last few years

More than 100 industry players are involved in developing CAR-T therapies; academic institutes continue to make significant contributions to the innovation in this field

The discovery of novel, disease-specific targets has opened up new avenues for the development of CAR-T based treatment options for a diverse range of cancer indications

A number of prominent scientists have emerged as key opinion leaders in this domain, having led / presently leading various CAR-T therapy related clinical development efforts

Over time, multiple generations of CAR constructs based on a variety of scFv fragments using different vector types, have been developed to improve therapeutic efficiency

The adoption of marketed therapies indicates that this credible promise can be turned into reality by deploying diverse promotional strategies

The growing optimism is also evident in the opinions expressed by several industry / academic stakeholders and on social media

With a robust development pipeline and encouraging clinical outcomes, the market is anticipated to grow at an annualized rate of over 50% and be worth USD 15 billion by 2030