Noted

Pfizer launched a not-for-profit initiative to provide its current and future patent-protected drugs to 45 lower-income countries. The current assortment of 23 medicines and vaccines, which are patented in the United States or the European Union, treat some infectious, rare, and inflammatory diseases, as well as certain leukemias, breast cancers, and kidney cancers.

Atara Biotherapeutics and Bayer will end their $670 million exclusive worldwide licensing agreement for next-generation mesothelin-directed chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies. The collaboration included the development and funding of ATA3271, an armored allogeneic T-cell immunotherapy, and an autologous version, ATA2271, for high mesothelin–expressing tumors.

Federal agencies, Congress, and others need to improve representation of minority groups and underrepresented populations in clinical trials, according to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM 2022 May 17 [Epub ahead of print]). Lack of representation may limit access to medical interventions and new therapies for some patients and increase health disparities, which could cost the United States hundreds of billions of dollars over the next 30 years.

In a phase I trial, Caribou Biosciences’ CAR T-cell therapy, CB-010, demonstrated an overall response rate of 100% in all five evaluable patients with relapsed/refractory B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL); 80% experienced a complete response (CR) lasting up to 6 months. Caribou says that “CB-010 is the first allogeneic anti-CD19 CAR T-cell therapy in the clinic with a PD-1 knockout, a genome-editing strategy designed to limit premature CAR T-cell exhaustion.”

Nkarta reported that two of its CAR natural killer (NK) cell therapies, NKX101 and NKX019, showed promising efficacy in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and NHL. NKX101, which targets NKG2D, induced a CR rate of 60% with full hematologic recovery among five patients with relapsed/refractory AML. With NKX019, which targets CD19, the CR rate was 50% and the objective response rate was 83% among six patients with NHL.

For more news on cancer research, visit Cancer Discovery online at http://cancerdiscovery.aacrjournals.org/CDNews.