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New Trial Uses Bispecific CAR T-Cell Therapy to Target Pediatric ALL
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Children’s National Health System in Washington, D.C., announced that it will be the second location to enroll patients in a pediatric trial that uses a bispecific chimeric antigen receptor to target both CD19 and CD22 antigens in pediatric patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
The PLAT-05 study is a phase 1 trial that will examine the safety and feasibility of an autologous CD19/CD22-specific CAR T-cell therapy in children and young adults with relapsed or refractory CD19+/CD22+ leukemia.
“We’re excited to bring CD19 and CD22 CAR T-cell therapy to Children’s National for the treatment of pediatric patients with relapsed/refractory acute lymphoblastic leukemia,” Catherine Bollard, MBChB, MD, director of the Center for Cancer and Immunology Research at the Children’s Research Institute, said in a press release. “We hope the PLAT-05 trial leads to increased remission rates for our patients in our effort to make them cancer-free for life.”
The bispecific CD19/CD22 CAR used in the PLAT-05 trial was developed by researchers at Seattle Children’s Hospital and it targets both the CD19 and CD22 proteins on cancer cells. Previous trials have shown impressive responses to treatment in this heavily pretreated population, but nearly 50% of patients who received the CD19 CAR experienced disease relapse. This bispecific CAR is designed to attack cancer cells if they evolve to no longer express either CD19 or CD22 proteins on the cell surface.
Children’s National and Seattle Children’s are both members of CureWorks, an international collaborative of leading academic children’s hospitals looking to accelerate the development of immunotherapy treatments for pediatric cancer.
“We are thrilled that children on the East Coast will now have access to PLAT-05 at Children’s National, allowing them to participate in the groundbreaking CAR T-cell trial closer to home,” Mike Jensen, MD, executive director of CureWorks and director of the Ben Towne Center for Childhood Cancer Research at Seattle Children’s Research Institute, said in a press release. “Extending the reach of this clinical trial not only allows patients to be treated in their own community, but it also helps to accelerate our ability to ultimately develop a treatment that enables all kids with cancer to grow up and realize their full potential.”
The PLAT-05 trial is open to patients aged 1 to 26 years with relapsed or refractory pre–B-cell ALL, CD19- or CD22-positive acute leukemia or CD19 non-Hodgkin lymphoma. More information on this trial (NCT03330691) is available at clinicaltrials.gov. Providers with potentially eligible patients should email Lauren McLaughlin, MD, at lmclaugh@childrensnational.org or call (202) 476-5000.