Rapid CAR-T cells: Accelerating manufacturing to enable fast transition of CAR-T cell therapies to the clinic

Despite the remarkable progress and vast growth in the number of CAR-T cell programs transitioning into the clinic and revolutionizing the oncology landscape, the complex manufacturing process associated with these therapies presents challenges impacting patient accessibility to these potentially curative treatments.

Now, the field is beginning to explore rapid CAR-T cell manufacturing approaches that enable the generation of products that possess stronger stem-like properties and exhibit robust potency and persistence when challenged in vitro and in vivo. First-in-human clinical trials of rapid CAR-T cells support these observations, reporting notable anti-tumor responses from dose-level administrations that are remarkably lower than those used for products manufactured under longer-term protocols.

Lonza has generated a Rapid Manufacturing application that consolidates all critical steps required for transforming T cells into potent CAR-T cell therapies within a 72-hour automated workflow. The application is operated in the Lonza Cocoon® Platform in a streamlined protocol with minimal manual touchpoints.

In this webinar, we will discuss the advantages of shorter CAR-T cell manufacturing protocols and highlight the benefits of automation to reduce labor requirements and manufacturing costs, while supporting process robustness and reproducibility. Moreover, we will describe the phenotypic and functional attributes of rapid CAR-T cell products manufactured in the Cocoon®, and will demonstrate a cryopreservation strategy to support the recovery of stable, viable, and functional CAR-T cells.

• The advantages of shorter manufacturing strategies for the generation of CAR-T cells
• The impact of automation in reducing labor requirements and overall manufacturing costs
• How to improve cryopreservation methods to conserve the critical phenotypic and functional attributes of your CAR-T cell product

Tamara Laskowski

Global Head, Clinical and Process Development at Lonza Personalized Medicine

Dr Tamara Laskowski is the Senior Director and head of Clinical Development at Lonza-Personalized Medicine. She supports the transition of novel adoptive cell therapies from pre-clinical stage into clinical manufacturing. Dr Laskowski received a dual doctorate degree in the fields of Human Molecular Genetics and Immunology from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, where her work focused on genetic engineering of immune cells and stem cells. As a post-doctoral fellow at MD Anderson, she developed platforms for off-the-shelf production of genetically-modified NK and T cells. Subsequently, Tamara transitioned to a Senior Scientist position at the Immunotherapy Platform led by Dr James Allison where her work focused on characterization of immune response to solid tumors in the clinical setting. For her contributions to the development of innovative analysis platforms, Dr Laskowski was awarded a fellowship to the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps and received a prize for outstanding performance.

Kelly Purpura

Process Development Manager, Clinical Development at Lonza

Kelly Purpura has a decade of experience in process optimization for stem cell and immunological cell cultures. She has specialized in process translation to the Cocoon® Platform at Lonza for various applications and for immunotherapy.

Kelly obtained her MASc and PhD at the University of Toronto through the departments of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry and the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering with work focused on the phenotypic and functional analysis of osteoprogenitor hierarchy and on controlling the emergence of hematopoietic progenitor cells from pluripotent stem cells.

Watch now

SPEAKERS

Tamara Laskowski

Global Head, Clinical and Process Development at Lonza Personalized Medicine

Kelly Purpura

Process Development Manager, Clinical Development at Lonza

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