InnoCAR-T’s mission is to make point-of-care (PoC) manufacture of innovative CAR-Ts a reality for cancer patients in the EU. The project’s integrated academia-industry approach uniquely positions InnoCAR-T to develop a set of improved next-generation CAR-T immunotherapies that will significantly advance the field beyond the state-of-the art.
Due to the long lead times of current centralised production of CAR-T, the implementation of PoC CAR-T is expected to strongly contribute to reducing mortality as sick patients are treated more rapidly, and more terminal patients will become eligible for treatment. Current centralised standard of care CAR-T in the Netherlands and in Europe has a lead time of ~4 to 6 weeks, whereas the lead time for the PoC CAR-T innovation to be established by InnoCAR-T (PoC CD19 CAR-T) will be less than 2 weeks. Notably, due to the reduced costs as described above, this life-saving therapy can also be more widely implemented in the EU. Thus, the outcomes of InnoCAR-T will lead to a decrease in avoidable mortality in the near future.
An additional important societal impact is the fact that PoC negates the need for the transport of each individual patient’s CAR-T cells. Currently, cells are obtained from the patient, driven to the airport, flown to the US where CAR-Ts are prepared, whereupon the reverse travel cycle is needed for getting the CAR-Ts to the hospital/patient. Thus, centralised production has a large carbon footprint. Since in PoC manufacturing the entire process proceeds in-house at the site of the hospital, the PoC innovations that are central to InnoCAR-T’s goals will also strongly reduce the carbon footprint of CAR-T therapy.