Rui Therapeutics Presents Promising Clinical Data of CD19 CAR-NK Therapy for Severe Lupus at ACR 2024

▎Armstrong

From November 14 to 19, 2024, the American College of Rheumatology Annual Meeting (ACR) was held in Washington, where the latest clinical data on Rui Therapeutics' CD19 CAR-NK therapy for the treatment of recurrent systemic lupus erythematosus was publicly presented. A total of 20 patients with active severe recurrent systemic lupus erythematosus received three doses of CD19 CAR-NK treatment. One patient was in the first dose cohort, one in the second dose cohort, five in the third dose cohort, and 13 in the fourth dose cohort. In terms of safety, only two patients experienced grade 1 CRS (transient fever), with no other side effects or infection events observed. Regarding efficacy, among the eight patients followed up for over six months, four (50%) achieved DORIS remission, and six (75%) reached LLDAS (low lupus disease activity).

On November 18, CAR-NK pioneer Fate Therapeutics announced clinical data of its off-the-shelf CAR-T therapy FT819 in treating lupus patients. No grade 3 or higher adverse effects were observed in the patient, achieving DORIS remission, discontinuation of all immunosuppressive treatments, and B-cell reconstitution primarily with Naive and non-class switched B cells.

Summary

In July this year, Bionovogene published clinical data on its universal CD19 CAR-T therapy for treating autoimmune diseases in the journal Cell. This time, Rui Therapeutics published clinical data on 20 patients with severe lupus treated with CD19 CAR-NK. Pioneer in CAR-NK, Fate Therapeutics, also announced excellent efficacy data from the first lupus patient treated with universal CAR-T. Universal CAR-T or CAR-NK may achieve clinical breakthroughs in the autoimmune field first, and we look forward to their early market launch.