A ground-breaking form of cancer therapy has been unveiled, meaning New Zealanders will no longer have to travel overseas for the treatment.
It’s known as CAR T-cell therapy and works by treating a patient’s own immune cells (t cells) in the lab before they are transfused back to them.
The Malaghan Institute, an independent research centre in Wellington, has teamed up with private investment firm Bridgewest Ventures, to bring the new technology to New Zealand. The government has also contributed $5 million.
A Swiss-made machine called a “cocoon” manufactures the CAR T-cells. Malaghan Institute Clinical Director Dr Robert Weinkove explained how it works.
“We actually take patient T-cells and we re-programme them, we add a new gene, that redirects them against their own malignancy. So CAR T-cells are patients own T-cells that have been redirected against their own tumour.”
The therapy is a last resort for late stage blood cancers, which 3,000 New Zealanders are diagnosed with each year.
But the only way they can get CAR T-cell therapy is by going overseas, or being part of a small clinical trial at the Malaghan Institute.
Nine people have so far been through that clinical trial and the results are due in the coming months.
Aucklander David Downs paid $350,000 to get CAR T-cell therapy in Boston.
He had advanced lymphoma, but four years on he said he’s feeling “dangerously good.”
He had his final trip to Boston a year ago and was told he’s been “essentially cured.”
Downs said it was “incredible” given he had been given less than a year to live.
The Malaghan Institute’s general manager Mike Zablocki hopes that more New Zealanders can now be treated here through the public health system “at a fraction of the cost” of similar therapies overseas.
The Cancer Society’s Medical Director Dr Kate Gregory was positive about the move.
“This is really exciting and I think it's very heartening for clinical researchers and patients around the country to see the money going into this type of research.”
The plan is to buy five cocoons so 100 patients can be treated each year.
The treatment is a one-off and has the potential to cure patients.
“I suspect it works out economical compared to some other treatments that are delivered,” said Weinkove.
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