Are bad businesses selling false hopes for patients with cancer and other serious diseases?

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Editor’s note: A startup in Florida offers customers an opportunity to store their immune cells for cancer treatment in the future. But scientists are skeptical that this is not as simple as simple frozen storage, and there is currently not enough data to show that immune cells can still be effective after 20 years of freezing. This article was compiled from medium, author Emily Mullin, original title “Should You Save Your Cells Now to Fight Cancer Later?”

Freezing immune cells waiting for future cancer treatment, is this reliable?

A Florida startup called Cell Vault wants to store your immune cells for future use. The company said the cells could be used to make so-called anti-cancer active drugs and provide services to freeze these cells for storage at an initial price of $700, followed by an annual frozen storage price of $300.

Clinical trials in some cancer patients have shown that advanced therapies including enhanced autoimmune cells have achieved significant results. Although most cancer patients still receive traditional treatments such as chemotherapy and radiation therapy, Cell Vault believes that this situation will change in the next few years, and consumers will be willing to continue to pay for the acquisition and storage of these cells. But some cancer doctors say that people may never need to use their own stored cells, even if some people use them, we don’t know if they can be used for such treatment.

The company’s founder and CEO, Kevin Kirk, previously run a “activity experience” company called Social Nova, who thought of the idea after chatting with a friend who worked at a biotech company. Kirk believes that if people can use frozen eggs and embryos for future fertility treatments, why not freeze immune cells for future cancer treatment? (The cost of frozen eggs and embryos is about $400 to $1,000 per year.)

Kirk’s company is in good healthPeople, especially “health-conscious consumers 30-40 years old — have the ability to do such things”, and newly diagnosed cancer patients market their cell banking services. You can order the relevant services on the Cell Vault website. After the order is placed, the company will send a bloodsucker to your home to collect five bottles of your blood samples. Blood samples are then transported overnight to the Cell Vault’s lab where they are processed and stored. Cell Vault said it will officially begin offering this service in September.

The patient’s immune cells are currently used in two treatments approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2017: Kymriah and Yescarta, both of which can treat specific types of blood cancer. This therapy, called T-cell therapy, is by extracting T cells from the patient’s blood, an immune cell, which is then transported to the laboratory where scientists genetically engineer them in their The surface produces a protein called a chimeric antigen receptor. These receptors allow them to attach to cancer cells and kill cancer cells. The modified cells are then injected into the patient to reproduce and attack the cancer.

Kirk said that his idea is not a castle in the air, but when you have a lot of immune cells, when they are in the healthiest state, freeze them. But Dr. Yi Lin, a hematologist at the Mayo Clinic, believes that the chances of using your stored T cells for these treatments are “very low”. Cell Vault said on its website that one in three people will develop cancer during their lifetime, a number from the American Cancer Society, and most of them will never receive T cell therapy. This is because T cell therapy is the last life-saving straw in these patients after chemotherapy and radiotherapy failure – at least for now.

Kirk said that Cell Vault is trying to stay ahead of technology and healthcare, and hopes that more cell therapies will enter the market in the future. There are currently hundreds of ongoing clinical trials using T cells and other immune cells to treat a variety of cancers and other diseases. Scientists are also testing whether donor healthy cells can be used to treat cancer, which may one day reduce the need to use the patient’s own cells for treatment. However, these therapies are still in the experimental phase and may take several years to get FDA approval. It is unclear whether these drugs have the same effect on common solid tumors, such as breast cancer – more than 40,000 women die of breast cancer each year in the United States.

Not only that, Kirk believes his services can help newly diagnosed cancer patients. Some patients who take T-cell therapy after a severe round of chemotherapyThere are not enough T cells in the body. “They really didn’t have a way at the time, because there weren’t enough T cells, they were helpless, and they died like this,” Kirk said. The goal of Cell Vault is to make people store their cells before they have to face such extreme conditions.

For those who freeze T cells and may need cell therapy in the future, the cells they store may not be useful. Bruce Levine, a professor of cancer gene therapy at the University of Pennsylvania who helped develop Kymriah, said that rapid blood draws can only collect millions of cells. For two approved T cell therapies, “absolutely not enough”. Levine said the FDA has not approved treatments using stored cells.

In contrast, cell therapy Kymriah and Yescarta require billions of cells. These cells are not obtained by blood draw, but by a process called “dialysis.” In this process, the immune cells in the human blood are separated by a machine, and the remaining blood is returned to the body. This process collects billions of cells needed for T cell therapy. However, Kirk said that the patient’s stored cells can be propagated in the lab to make enough cells for surgery, but the company has not provided any evidence that it can do this.

It is unclear whether the FDA will allow this method of storing cells for future treatment. Levine and Lin said that manufacturers of T-cell therapies may need FDA approval to use pre-frozen T cells from third parties. The FDA also limits the storage time of these cells. Lin said: “It is impossible to say that the assumptions and ideas are too simplistic just because you have saved some cells and then transported them to the company when they need it, let them directly produce and then use them.” Kirk responded by saying that Cell Vault is working with manufacturers to get their stored cells approved for future use.)

At present, there is not enough data to show that immune cells can still be effective after 20 years or more of freezing. (Cell Vault offers a package that lasts for 20 years, $200 a year, and a lifetime storage package that lasts for 80 years and costs just $100 a year.)

Levine is concerned that companies that provide immune cell storage services may be selling false hopes to patients with cancer and other serious diseases. “They are exploiting people’s fears.”

Translator: Xitang