Cellogen to bring next-gen cancer therapy to India

New Delhi-based biotech startup Cellogen Therapeutics- working on cell based therapies - is planning to bring the new Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)- T cell cancer therapy to India and has inked a knowledge sharing agreement with CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (CSIR-IGIB) for the same.

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)- T cell therapy is a new form of immunotherapy where the T cells of the patient are genetically engineered and made competent to identify and kill the cancer cells.

Currently, this therapy is available only in European and American market and comes at costs around $500,000 -700,000 per patient.

The startup, steered by Gaurav Kharya, senior consultant paediatric haematology oncology and clinical lead at Delhi's Apollo Centre for Bone marrow transplant & cellular therapy - aims to bring the therapy to India at 1/20th to 1/30th of the cost- in the $20,000-30,000 range.

CSIR-IGIB will help in the synthesis of novel 3 rd & 4 th generation chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) constructs in India.

"Chimeric Antigen Receptor cells represent a cutting-edge technology that holds great promise for cancer treatment. We are delighted to offer IGIB's expertise in genome manipulation towards translational efforts in this area", said Dr. Anurag Agrawal, Director, CSIR-IGIB at the inking of the agreement with Cellogen Therapeutics.

Since these are novel 3rd and 4th generation CAR designs which have never been tried and tested earlier, Cellogen Therapeutics has filed for a provisional intellectual patent for these CAR designs. This shall be followed by a permanent patent as they submit some more data consolidating the claim. The startup also plans to move beyond CAR T cell therapy for liquid malignancies and is already looking at cell approaches for solid tumours, autoimmune diseases, Thalassemia & Sickle Cell Disease, multiple myeloma and other inherited metabolic diseases.

"Cellogen envisions to use indigenous strategies to provide cost effective state of art futuristic therapies such as CAR T cell, gene therapy and gene editing for various oncological, hematological and metabolic diseases. Cellogen has conceptualized novel 3rd and 4th generation CAR T cell constructs whereas 2nd gen and few single target 3rd generation CAR's are currently used globally. The proposed cost of these therapies shall be almost 1/30th of the cost of existing products in American and European market which are still 2nd generation."said founder director of Cellogen Therapeutics Kharya.