First in Europe: All approved CAR T-cell therapy products are available at Leipzig University Hospital (UKL)

Leipzig. Hope for critically ill patients with haematological cancers: Leipzig University Hospital (UKL) is the first hospital in Europe to have the option of using all approved CAR-T cell therapy products. The final certification process will also be completed in January 2023. This means that patients can now receive these therapies for a majority of indications at the Clinic and Polyclinic for Hämatology, Cell Therapy and Hämostaseology headed by Prof Uwe Platzbecker.

 Achieving certification not only means concluding a contract with the manufacturer of the respective product, but also involves numerous training sessions as well as complex and rigorous audits, for example by the Paul Ehrlich Institute or the Medical Service of the Health Insurance Funds. "The last of these audits took place on 20 December and we passed everything with flying colours," reports Dr Vladan Vucinic, Senior Physician at the Hämatology and Cell Therapy. 

"CAR T-cell therapy is quite complex," he explains. "The special feature here is The patient's own defence cells are used as the starting material." CAR-T stands for "Chimeric Antigen Receptor T" cell therapy, as it is not an antibody that binds and destroys the cancer cell, but the immune cell, i.e. the T cell itself.

The required components are "washed out" directly from the patient's blood by means of apheresis, also known as blood exchange or blood washing, and passed on to the pathogen manufacturer for "genetic reprogramming". There, the immune cells are manipulated in such a way that they target a specific tumour after they have been returned to the patient at the UKL.

"Apheresis, i.e. blood washing, is also carried out here at the UKL, and the associated unit and laboratory are also certified," emphasises Dr Vucinic.

"We used this type of therapy, which costs around 300,000 euros to produce, on a patient for the first time in June 2019. There are now exactly 80 of them," says senior physician Dr Vucinic. In cooperation with the Leipzig Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology (IZI) and the Institute of Clinical Immunology at the UKL, several research projects are currently underway on these therapies, both clinical and translational in nature.

Source: Press release UKL