A new cell ther­a­py biotech emerges to find sol­id tu­mor-killing im­mune cells in pa­tients' blood

A new au­tol­o­gous cell ther­a­py mak­er is com­ing to the fore with $10 mil­lion to start.

Chica­go-based CTRL Ther­a­peu­tics hopes to ex­pand be­yond the cur­rent scope of can­cers treat­ed by ex­ist­ing cell ther­a­pies and al­so in­tro­duce a less com­plex process for pa­tients and man­u­fac­tur­ers.

CTRL is try­ing to build on an­oth­er next-gen­er­a­tion cell ther­a­py method known as tu­mor in­fil­trat­ing lym­pho­cyte, or TIL, ther­a­py. That ap­proach, though, re­quires sur­gi­cal­ly re­mov­ing cells from the pa­tient’s tu­mor. Io­vance Bio­ther­a­peu­tics, af­ter years of de­lays, fin­ished sub­mit­ting its TIL ther­a­py last month in the hopes of gar­ner­ing the first such FDA ap­proval. Mean­while, an­oth­er TIL play­er, In­stil Bio, end­ed a tri­al and down­sized in re­cent months.

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