Juno Therapeutics Resumes CAR T Cell Leukemia Clinical Trial

Posted: Jul 27, 2016

In a prior post we reported that Juno Therapeutics halted their acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) CAR T Cell clinical trial due to patient deaths when they added a second chemotherapy (fludarabine) to the immunotherapy regimen plus cyclophosphamide. Less than a week later, the trial was cleared to be reopened by discontinuing the fludarabine and resuming the trial with cyclophosphamide and the CAR T Cell treatment alone.

According to CNBC news, the good news from the ROCKET trial improved their share price by 24 percent. The treatment is Juno's most advanced drug candidate.

The removal of fludarabine to the mix allows Juno to continue enrolling for their clinical trial. CAR T Cell therapy is a hot new area of research in blood cancers and is coming to multiple myeloma. T cells are removed from an individual patient and are then engineered to target a protein found on cancerous cells. This completely new approach is being supported by the Myeloma Crowd Research Initiative (MCRI).

about the author
Jennifer Ahlstrom

Myeloma survivor, patient advocate, wife, mom of 6. Believer that patients can help accelerate a cure by weighing in and participating in clinical research. Founder of HealthTree Foundation (formerly Myeloma Crowd).