For many blood cancer patients, chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies have been a life saver. This exciting and promising technology has shown to produce powerful and prolonged immune responses, often destroying the cancer cells they target.
However, the caveats of current FDA approved CAR T-cell therapies are 1) time consuming due to their “customized” nature that can take several weeks to manufacture, 2) engineered directly from the affected patients’ own cells (autologous) and 3) mostly applicable for blood cancer treatment, with a few upcoming FDA approved CAR T-cell products specific for solid cancers such as Tecelra® (soft tissue cancer) and Amtagvi® (melanoma).
Enter the allogeneic and “off the shelf” immune cell-based therapies. These therapies are based on immune cells such as T cells and natural killer (NK) cells that are manufactured from healthy donor cells, stored, and used on demand, resulting in a significant reduction in the “wait” time for cancer treatment from weeks to days.
Now, several companies are in the process of creating NK cell-based cancer therapies and, according to the American Association of Cancer Research, they’re getting close to a solution.
Senti-Biosciences, for example, recently showed several patients experiencing complete remission of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) after being treated with their CAR-NK cell-based cancer therapy platform. But Senti is not the only company diligently working on a solution.
Peter Choo, Chairman of Singapore-based CytoMed Therapeutics (NASDAQ: GDTC) said, “It is very encouraging to see these early data from Senti. It is our belief that NK cell-based cancer therapies will be the next great breakthrough in cancer therapy.
“Our company, CytoMed, is developing an iPSC-γδ NK T-cell therapy product which we hope to reveal some data on, perhaps sometime later this year, or early next. This product is engineered as an allogeneic solution, which we believe ultimately could target a wide range of cancers and could do so at a lower cost than current, more narrowly targeted and time-consuming, CAR T-cell solutions.
“We encourage the scientific community to review our technology and see why we start with iPSCs at https://w2.cytomed.sg/ipsc-gamma-delta-nkt-cell/,” he concluded.
To read more about CytoMed Therapeutics, visit HERE
Or, for a quick review of the Senti data shown in The American Journal of Managed Care®, visit HERE
The first Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-cell therapy (CAR T) for cancer was approved by US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on August 30, 2017. As of 2025, a total of seven CAR T-cell therapies have been FDA approved. All of which have shown strong efficacy in the fight against cancer.
Although CAR T-cell therapies have led the way in the fight against cancer, especially blood cancer, researchers believe the next great breakthrough will come from Natural Killer cell based therapies.
As STAT, a health, medicine, and life sciences publication reports “NK cells are rapid responders in the fight against cancer that can recognize and destroy tumor cells without prior training.
“Unlike most T cell therapies, which require modifying each patient’s own cells, NK cells can be sourced from healthy donors, stem cells or cord blood banks to create an off-the-shelf, scalable treatment option.
“This difference could sidestep major hurdles in cell therapy, including high costs of therapy, toxicities and manufacturing bottlenecks that leave many patients without options.”
There are now clinical evidence showing that NK cells have the capability of delivering the results of CAR T cells, but with additional benefits including:
Lower toxicity, improved accessibility and scalability, and the potential to treat a wider range of cancer types beyond blood cancer.
For this reason, among others, CytoMed Therapeutics (a Singapore-based biotech listed on the Nasdaq with ticker symbol GDTC) has developed multiple products pipeline that include NK cell-based immunotherapy.
The company’s pipeline of cellular immunotherapies is based on novel technologies to manufacture “off-the-shelf” cellular-based cancer immunotherapies from healthy doner blood.
These products include the CAR-γδ T cell technology (CTM-N2D), unmodified γδ T cell technology (CTM-GDT) and iPSC-derived γδ NKT cell technology (gdNKT).
Excitingly, the gdNKT therapy exploits the combinatorial benefits of two immune cell types; the multiple antigen recognition systems of natural killer (NK) cells, and the GVHD (graft vs host disease) resistant γδ T cells for the treatment of a broad range of solid and blood cancers.
As noted earlier, STAT says, “Unlike most T cell therapies, which require modifying each patient’s own cells, NK cells can be sourced from healthy donors, stem cells or cord blood banks to create an off-the-shelf, scalable treatment option.”
In an effort to bolster its gdNKT technology, last October CytoMed acquired the cord blood banking license and assets of LongevityBank.
See more of CytoMed’s product pipeline, HERE
Or read STAT’s coverage on NK cells, HERE
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