Bengaluru: Narayana Health, one of the leading healthcare chains in India, has announced that they have offered support to Immuneel Therapeutics, to build the most advanced CAR-T cell laboratory at the Narayana Health city Bengaluru. With this Narayana Health will offer hospital-based CAR-T cell generating laboratory and initiate the Phase II Clinical Trial.
Speaking about the development, Dr. Devi Shetty, Chairman and Founder, Narayana Health, said, “At Narayana Health we have always been at the forefront of adopting the latest treatment modalities that will help our patients. The association with Immuneel and the setting up of CAR-T cell laboratory is an extension of this vision. We are planning to set up an in-house facility that offers CAR-T therapy and want to make CAR-T cell therapy affordable to Indians.”
In CAR-T type of treatment the lymphocytes (one type of white cells) are taken from the patient, genetically modified, equipped to kill cancer cells and re-infused back into the patient. These modified cells called CAR-T cells circulate in patients’ body and selectively kill the cancer cells. Unlike chemotherapy, this treatment is highly selective immunotherapy and does targeted killing and hence does not have the side effects of the traditional chemotherapy. CAR-T is highly effective in relapsed and refractory blood cancers like Leukaemia and Multiple Myeloma and has shown promising results in other types of cancers that are difficult to treat as well as resistant to other forms of treatment including bone marrow transplants.
