In 2011, cancer cell therapy was closer to science project than treatment.
Immunologist Carl June and his colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania were struggling to raise money for a small study of a cell therapy for leukemia. The trial “was an academic exercise,” said June. “We had no idea it would turn into a commercially viable product.”
The treatment June was working on, now sold as Kymriah, became the first CAR-T cancer therapy to reach market, establishing cell therapy as a new class of medicines. Other, similar treatments have followed since and are used to treat leukemia, lymphoma and multiple myeloma. When they work, they can produce durable remissions.
