In Immunotherapy, Finally time for T Cells?
This article was originally published in Start Up
Executive Summary
Immunotherapy has seen its share of failures in recent months, but T-cell oriented therapies are by no means dead in the water and therapeutic cancer vaccines continue to attract funding. This month START-UP profiles three companies that nevertheless have been able to attract funding . They aim to avoid the difficulties that have sunk other efforts to commercialize immunotherapies. The firms are transplanting T cells along with same-donor bone marrow to fight infection, delivering powerful cytokines and other therapeutic payloads via T-cell receptor targeting, and genetically enhancing the ability of T-cell receptors to recognize antigens before growing those T cells in culture and re-infusing them into a patient's body.