NK Cell Therapy – An IP Update

Advances in CAR-T cell therapy have carved a path for improved treatments in the field of oncology, in particular haematological cancers. In 2018, the European Medicine's Agency approved the first two CAR-T cell therapies, Kymriah® and Yescarta®, for marketing authorisation for the treatment of certain cancers ¹. Since then, CAR-T cell therapy has been rolled out across Europe, largely for the treatment of large B-cell lymphoma, mantle cell lymphoma, and acute lymphoblastic leukaemia. However, the same success has not been realised for solid tumours ².

To address the challenge of cell therapy for the treatment of solid tumours, many have looked towards the power of natural killer (NK) cells as a potential therapy. In particular, CAR-NK cell therapy is thought to have several advantages over CAR-T cell therapy, such as an improved safety profile with a reduced risk of cytokine release syndrome and lower incidence of graft versus host disease ³. CAR-NK cells may also