In early January 2025, US President Donald Trump announced a massive artificial intelligence infrastructure project, called The Stargate Project, with one of its aims being to develop an AI cancer vaccine. The entire project is expected to be funded by up to $500 billion.
Oracle co-Founder and one of the project leads, Larry Elison said, “Turns out cancer tumors … little fragments of those tumors float around in your blood. You can do early cancer detection with a blood test, and using AI to look at the blood test you can find the cancers that are seriously threatening the person.”
However, even though investment in cancer research is welcomed, news from Asia may show that the size of the investment (although only a small portion will likely go to cancer research), may end up being somewhat wasteful.
You see, on January 20, 2025, Chinese developers released an AI model called DeepSeek-R1. The model, which by all accounts performs the same “tasks” as ChatGPT and other AI models, does so at a mere fraction of the infrastructure and energy costs of its competitors. Additionally, it is purported not require new and expensive Nvidia chips, nor massive data centers to operate.
As news broke of the development, shares in Nvidia (NVDA) plummeted.
The Cost Effectiveness of The Asian Marketplace
When it comes to cost savings across all product types, Asian scientists and manufacturers have clearly taken the lead. Which brings us to advanced cancer therapy and Singapore-based CytoMed Therapeutics’ (NASDAQ: GDTC) role in helping to fight both solid and blood cancers.
Recall, Larry Elison said of the AI cancer vaccine project, “Using AI to look at the blood test you can find the cancers that are seriously threatening the person.” This may very well be true. But it’s actually fighting those cancers after they metastasize, not simply detecting them beforehand, that can make a real difference for human life.
While mRNA cancer vaccines can work (and the Stargate Project looks to assist in their development), they have, so far, shown limited success in actually curing patients. However, they have been shown, as noted by the Royal College of Pathologists, to work well alongside CAR T-cell therapies.
This is where Asia-based CytoMed looks to make cancer therapies effective, accessible and affordable, at potentially a fraction of the cost of current, and proven CAR T-cell therapies.
As an article in USA Today says, “In Singapore, one biotech company is changing how we approach cancer treatment. CytoMed Therapeutics (NASDAQ: GDTC), just launched its ANGELICA clinical trial, to fundamentally change how we make cancer treatments available to patients worldwide.”
“Building on the success of CAR T-cell therapy in treating blood cancers, they’re taking things to the next level by tackling a broader range of cancers while making the whole process quicker, easier, and more affordable for patients.”
CytoMed Chairman, Peter Choo said, “Think of it as training a versatile army of super-soldiers to fight cancer. Traditional CAR T-cell therapy takes soldiers from the patient’s own body, but these soldiers are often weakened because the patient has already been through multiple rounds of chemotherapy.
“Instead, we’re recruiting healthy soldiers from disease-free, healthy donors and equipping them with special targeting systems to hunt down cancer cells.”
With current CAR T-cell therapies costing as much as USD $500,000 per patient, it’s CytoMed’s approach to creating an allogenic “off-the-shelf” therapy the company believes could bring down costs significantly, while opening the life-saving technology up to a far larger patient pool.
“We are actively seeking partners and exploring ways for no-option terminal cancer patients, anywhere in the world, to access our affordable therapeutics on a compassionate trial, especially in places supportive of such advanced medicine,” said Mr. Choo.
Regardless of whether $500 billion in AI infrastructure can assist in the creation of cancer vaccines, or if those vaccines will show true efficacy, CytoMed’s ultimate goal is to make CAR T-cell therapies, advanced cancer therapies that already show efficacy, far more affordable.
As Mr. Choo notes, “Just like DeepSeek has shown us, it’s not simply the amount of money thrown at a project, it’s how effectively and efficiently that money is utilized.”
Learn more about CytoMed Therapeutics’ (NASDAQ: GDTC) technology, and how the company strives to make advanced cancer therapies more accessible and affordable, HERE
Or read the full coverage of CytoMed Therapeutics (NASDAQ: GDTC) in USA Today, HERE
With over 34,000 patients having already been treated worldwide, chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell technology is revolutionizing the field of cancer therapy. Some studies have shown that up to 50% of patients treated with CAR T-cell therapies found lasting remission, with no additional treatment needed.
Since 2017 alone, eleven CAR T-cell products have been commercialized, with seven being approved by the US Food and Drug administration (FDA).
However, while big strides have been made in the field, and treatment results have been very promising, the majority of CAR T-cell therapies target hematological, or blood cancers alone, with all therapies currently coming with a very high price tag.
Today, the average cost of CAR T-cell therapy in the U.S. is between $300,000 and $600,000. Yet, with hospital time and post therapy care, the costs per patient could rise to over $1 million.
Recent coverage by MIT Technology Review explains the current process and expense by saying, “It’s not hard to see why CAR-T comes with a high price tag. Creating these therapies is a multistep process.
“First doctors harvest T cells from the patient. Those cells are then engineered outside the body using a viral vector, which inserts an artificial gene that codes for a chimeric antigen receptor, or CAR… The cells must then be grown in the lab until they number in the millions…
“It’s a high-tech and laborious process.”
But new breakthroughs in CAR T-cell technology look to not only bring the costs associated with the development and administration of the technology down, perhaps drastically, but also look to widen the field of targetable cancers, including solid tumors, with a single product.
As noted in the MIT Technology Review, “One way to cut costs is to produce the therapy in countries where drug development and manufacturing is significantly cheaper.”
Citing the MIT piece, Peter Choo, Chairman of CytoMed Therapeutics (NASDAQ: GDTC) said, “Indeed, producing CAR T-cell therapies in countries where manufacturing is significantly cheaper will bring down the costs.
“This is why CytoMed not only conducts our research and plans to manufacture our CAR T-cell therapies in Southeast Asia but has recently partnered with SunAct Cancer Institute for a Phase I/II clinical trial in India.
“Further, we look to develop an allogenic, off-the-shelf product that has the capability to treat a multitude of cancers, both solid tumors and blood and this is now in a Phase 1 first-in-human trial in Singapore.”
“By creating, trialing and manufacturing our off-the-shelf therapies in Asia, we believe we could have the ability to greatly increase patients access to this potentially lifesaving treatment, and to do so at a far lower cost than we currently see.”
Read more about CytoMed Therapeutics’ (NASDAQ: GDTC) novel, off-the-shelf allogenic cellular immunotherapies HERE
Or read more of the MIT Technology Review HERE
In early January 2025, the governments of Malaysia and Singapore announced the signing of an agreement to create a special economic zone to help bolster and attract global investment.
The special zone is located in Malaysia’s southernmost Johor state, bordering Singapore, and will offer tax breaks and incentives for 11 economic sectors including healthcare, manufacturing, aerospace, tourism and energy.
In a press conference, Singapore’s Prime Minister Lawrence Wong said, “When negotiating the agreement, both sides have actively engaged stakeholders to ensure that the JS-SEZ (Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone) has the conditions to help our businesses grow together for the longer term.
“The greater potential for the JS-SEZ is not just about Singapore businesses going to Johor, but it’s about both sides working together to attract new investment projects globally.”
“Very rarely do you find two countries working together as a team. These two countries have a common strategy, to assist one another, to work and benefit from each other’s strengths,” added Malaysian Prime Minister, Anwar Ibrahim.
Within the coming five years, officials hope the tax breaks and incentives will attract 50 projects within the zone and create 20,000 skilled jobs.
Of the announcement, Peter Choo, Chairman of CytoMed Therapeutics (NASDAQ: GDTC) which is engaged in cancer biologics, said, “The world now has a new special economic zone with tax incentives in a vibrant, new and huge Southeast Asian market. This will surely attract significant new investments and business ideas, especially in healthcare due to rapidly aging Singapore and the region as well as due to Johor’s cost competitiveness in land and labor.
“For CytoMed, this is great news as we had the vision to set up our business in Johor back in 2018. Now, multi-national corporations are looking to set up in Johor.”
Read more about CytoMed Therapeutics (NASDAQ: GDTC) HERE
Or read more about the special economic zone HERE
The cancer therapeutics landscape is rapidly changing. It wasn’t long ago, 2017 to be exact, that the first chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy was approved by the FDA for use in hematological, or blood cancer therapies.
To date, over 34,000 patients have been treated with this breakthrough therapy, with some early clinical trials patients experiencing blood cancer remissions of a decade or more.
Yet, roughly 7 years after the first FDA approval, most CAR T-cell therapies continue to target blood cancers, and blood cancers alone. Due to the unique, hostile environment surrounding solid tumors and the physical barriers which impede “traditional” CAR T-cell infiltration, the therapy has, unfortunately, shown little efficacy in combating the majority of cancers.
However, a recent study published in the journal Nature Biotechnology, by a group of researchers, explores advances in CAR T-cell therapy for the targeting of solid tumors.
“After a decade of relatively modest results for solid tumors, recent clinical trials and patient reports have also started to yield promising outcomes in glioblastoma and other challenging solid tumor entities,” said Nature.
With solid tumors accounting for roughly 90% of adult cancers, positive outcomes shown in clinical trials are giving hope to tens of millions of cancer patients.
And one such clinical trial, the ANGELICA Trial, has just begun.
CytoMed Therapeutics (NASDAQ: GDTC), recently announced it has dosed its first clinical trial patient for “Allogeneic CAR-Gamma Delta T Cell Therapy in Patients with Advanced Solid Tumors or Hematological Malignancies.”
Notably, CytoMed’s therapeutic targets blood cancers and solid tumor cancers, which if successful could lead to a therapy with far more versatility than those of the past.
“Dosing the first patient in the ANGELICA Trial, CytoMed has reached a significant milestone as a clinical stage biopharma. The ANGELICA Trial aims to assess the safety and potential efficacy of an allogeneic CAR-T therapy in patients with advanced solid tumors or hematological malignancies,” said Peter Choo, CytoMed’s Chairman.
“This is different from the current CAR-T cell therapy that typically involves taking patient’s blood cells and modifying these cells by grafting an artificial protein, known as a chimeric antigen receptor, on the surface of T cells, a type of white blood cell…
“The ANGELICA Trial taps on blood drawn from eligible (healthy) donors, potentially improving the quality of CAR-T cells, reducing production costs and increasing patients’ accessibility to therapy,” said the company.
To review CytoMed’s press release on its ANGELICA Trial, and to keep up to date on further developments, visit HERE
Or, or access to the journal Nature Biotechnology report on CAR T therapies for solid tumors, visit HERE