Advancements in Stem Cell Transplantation: Comparing Orca-T With PTCy

Alexandra Gomez Arteaga, MD, hematologist/oncologist in the bone marrow transplant and cellular therapy program at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, New York, discusses the rationale behind a retrospective study comparing Orca-T with posttransplant cyclophosphamide-based hematopoietic cell transplantation using data from existing studies that involved similar patient populations.

Arteaga also discusses the mechanism of action of Orca-T, a novel cell therapy under investigation. The agent works by leveraging regulatory T cells from allogeneic donors to control graft-vs-host disease (GVHD).

Transcription:

0:09 | Our field in allogeneic stem cell transplantation is changing, and we now have new ways of doing GVHD prophylaxis. The posttransplant cyclophosphamide studies and the platform have shown significant reduction in chronic GVHD. There might be other ways that we can improve outcomes by reducing other important things such as toxicities and relapse.

0:31 | Orca-T is a high precision immunotherapy that is a more organized fashion to create immune reconstitution. Based on the new changes in post transplant cyclophosphamide, we wanted to compare Orca-T [with] posttransplant cyclophosphamide since we currently are doing a study with Orca-T against the standard of care.

0:52 | With the current allografts, there are over 50 cell types that are infused together, and we have no control over how these cells interact for engraftment. Orca-T immune reconstitution, on the other hand, is the high-precision immunotherapy where the cells are in manufacture and divided into 3 main components. The first component is hematopoietic stem cells. The second component is highly purified T regulatory cells. The third component is the conventional cells.

1:20 | With this high precision immunotherapy, we can give the patient the exact number of cells at the exact time. On day 0, the patients get the stem cells from the T regulatory cells and these the regulatory cells are going to have an optimal immunomodulatory environment so that there's less GVHD. There is more organization of how the immune reconstitution happens.