During the 19th National Conference on Hematology of the Chinese Medical Association held in Beijing, China, held in September 2015, Professor Xiaoxi Zhou, MD, Ph.D., from the research team led by Director Jia Wei of the Department of Hematology, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, highlighted preliminary clinical data from two patients with Mantle Cell Lymphoma (MCL) enrolled in the study and treated with CT1190B, an allogeneic CAR T-cell therapy candidate.
PatientS Diagnosed with mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) Being treated with CT1190B achieved A complete response (CR)
Mantle Cell Lymphoma is an aggressive and currently incurable mature B-cell lymphoma characterized by a relapsing pattern, with shortened response and survival durations after disease progression.
Treatments for patients with relapsed/refractory disease are limited in number and response durability. Hence, a significant unmet medical need is to improve the efficacy of frontline treatment.[1]
Patients who experience early relapses following chemoimmunotherapy or those with high-risk features have a poor prognosis.
Although the introduction of Bruton’s tyrosine kinase inhibitors (BTKi) has revolutionized the treatment landscape for relapsed/refractory MCL, patients who develop resistance to BTK inhibitors face a dire prognosis due to a lack of effective treatment options.
While autologous CD19 CAR T-cell therapy has demonstrated promising efficacy in these patients, the high cost, complex manufacturing process, and impaired immune function in multidrug-resistant patients limit the preparation and antitumor activity of autologous CAR T-cells, resulting in limited overall treatment accessibility.
CT1190B CAR T-cells
Targeting CD19/CD20, CT1190B is an allogeneic CAR-T therapy developed based on CARsgen’s THANK-u Plus™ platform.
The investigator-initiated trial (IIT) is ongoing at Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, evaluating the safety, efficacy, and cellular pharmacokinetics of CT1190B CAR T-cells in patients with relapsed/refractory B-cell non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (Principal Investigator: Professor Yicheng Zhang).
First patients
As the first patients enrolled in this study, two patients with R/R MCL received the same dose of CT1190B following lymphodepletion chemotherapy (fludarabine + cyclophosphamide).
Both patients had undergone multiple prior lines of therapy: one had relapsed after chemoimmunotherapy and two BTK inhibitors, while the other had relapsed after chemoimmunotherapy, a BTK inhibitor, and a BCL2 inhibitor.
After CT1190B infusion, both patients experienced short-term cytopenia and cytokine release syndrome (CRS), which improved with supportive care. No other adverse events, such as immune effector cell-associated neurotoxicity syndrome (ICANS) or graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), were observed.
As of the data cutoff, one patient achieved a complete response in the tumor assessment at week 4. The other patient met discharge criteria on day 11 after infusion, following hematological recovery, and continued with outpatient follow-up, not yet reaching the time point for efficacy evaluation.
Both patients exhibited robust CAR T-cell expansion, with peak levels reaching 105 copies/µg gDNA. The current data support further exploration of CT1190B for the treatment of relapsed/refractory mantle cell lymphoma.
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Reference
[1] Ryan CE, Armand P, LaCasce AS. Frontline management of mantle cell lymphoma. Blood. 2025 Feb 13;145(7):663-672. doi: 10.1182/blood.2023022352. PMID: 38498174.
Featured image: Professor Xiaoxi Zhou, MD, Ph.D., from the research team led by Director Jia Wei of the Department of Hematology, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, highlighted preliminary clinical data from two patients with Mantle Cell Lymphoma (MCL) enrolled in the study and treated with CT1190B, an allogeneic CAR T-cell therapy candidate. Photo courtesy: © 2025 CARsgen Therapeutics. Used with permission.
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