What is CAR-T cell therapy and how is this drug class used to treat follicular lymphoma?

CAR-T or chimeric antigen receptor T cells are used in follicular lymphoma. There's currently three different approved products in follicular lymphoma.

So what CAR-T cells are is they also target an antigen or protein on the lymphoma cells. Patients donate or patients own T cells. So another part of their immune system are collected. And then they're sent off and re-engineered, to target, the lymphoma.

Those cells, once they're re-engineered, they're sent back. Patients get a few days of chemotherapy. And then those cells are re infused, and they're meant to expand and target the tumor, and they activate the immune system.

So those are used currently in patients who have follicular lymphoma that have relapsed after other therapies. The current approval for most patients is for patients who've had, two or been treated with two or more different therapies, they'll be used.

But there are patients who are treated for follicular lymphoma and then have an early relapse. And we know that that can be a higher risk situation. And so we're looking at CAR-T cell therapy in patients that are in those higher risk situations as well.