The big news about chimeric antigen receptor T-cells (CARTs) at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting that just concluded in Chicago is that there was no earth-shattering news. Some analysts feared that predictions of FDA approvals as early as 2017 would prove overly optimistic for the technology, which involves removing immune-boosting T-cells from patients, engineering them to target their specific cancers, then re-infusing them. But at ASCO, the three leaders in the space—Novartis (led by its collaborator, the University of Pennsylvania), Kite Pharma and Juno Therapeutics—presented data on their CART programs in blood cancers that clearly showed the cells are still performing well in clinical trials.
