The VELCART study was the first in India to use the POC manufacturing strategy approach in an academic setting to lower the costs involved in CAR-T cell therapy.

Data from the study demonstrated that POC manufacturing of CAR-T cells with nine days of vein-to-vein time was “feasible, safe, well tolerated, and efficacious” using the CliniMACS Prodigy fully automated closed system.

“The hospital cost/ HRU [health care resource utilization] of patients undergoing CAR-T cell therapy, including in-patient and outpatient CAR T care, demonstrated a median cost of $12,724,” per study specifics.

With the addition of manufacturing costs of $35,107, the total cost of the decentralized/POC manufactured CAR-T cell therapy stood at $47,831, which is one-tenth of the cost of CAR-T cell products marketed in the US, the study observed. However, it added that the long-term disease response and detailed costing structures are yet to be evaluated.

Patient access to cutting edge therapies like CAR-T in markets like India are constrained by the prohibitive costs and complexities around treatment and turnaround time, among other aspects, and there appears to be a concerted industry-government effort to address some of these challenges.

In October 2023, the Indian regulator had approved the first indigenously developed CAR-T cell therapy, NexCAR19 (actalycabtagene autoleucel), from Immunoadoptive Cell Therapy’s (ImmunoACT). NexCAR19, which is indicated for the treatment of relapsed/refractory B-cell lymphomas and leukaemia, came at a fraction of the cost of globally available products.

Watch This Space: Miltenyi‘s ‘Brain-To-Vein,’ Point-Of-Care CAR-T Efforts In India

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