Diving into the Clinical Immune Cell Therapy Landscape for Autoimmune Diseases

I put together a development map of all clinical activity in cell therapy for autoimmune diseases and discuss key takeaways, insights, and the current hype cycle

Introduction

With updated data of CD19 CAR-Ts coming out at ASH, showcasing remissions in multiple autoimmune diseases and many CD19 CAR-T players pivoting into these indications, I felt it was time to take a closer look into the competitive landscape for cell therapies in autoimmune diseases.

Below you’ll see a graphic or ‘development map’ of sorts that captures cell therapy programs in development for autoimmune diseases. The map captures what phase of development each program is for the respective autoimmune diseases it is being developed in. I used data from Hanson Wade’s Beacon Adoptive Cell Therapy database to put the graphic together. Rather than go with the typical “stack chart” format for landscapes here, I wanted to showcase a view that allows you to see the breadth of indications these therapies are being developed in as well as how far along (i.e. what phase) each is in for each disease.

For this exercise, I focused on company-sponsored (i.e. non-academic) programs that are already in the clinic or have had INDs cleared to begin clinical studies. Looking at the pre-clinical landscape, it was a bit difficult to determine indication prioritization for many programs, as seemingly most are listed as going after “autoimmune disease” or “inflammation” broadly, so I felt it best to leave them out for this first iteration. I excluded programs that were based on non-immune cell types (e.g. like stem cells) and excluded cell therapy vaccines (typically dendritic cells). I also omitted certain autoimmune diseases here like Type 1 Diabetes (which is its own world entirely that I’d like to cover in a future post) as well as GvHD. Based on your feedback I’ll add-in new indications and program types to the graphic if my subscribers are finding this sort of thing useful.

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UPDATE: If you're a subscriber, I'm also happy to send you downloadable copy of this development map. Please comment below and I will email it to you.

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Immune Cell Therapy in Autoimmune Diseases, Development Map

Key Takeaways and Insights