University of Pennsylvania Gene Therapy Spinout Interius BioTherapeutics Doses Patient, Achieves CAR Therapy First

Interius BioTherapeutics, a Penn spinout company co-founded by Saar Gill, MD, PhD, an associate professor of Hematology-Oncology, recently announced treatment of the first patient in a clinical trial of a new CAR T cell therapy. The method of manufacturing CAR T cells that was developed at Penn Medicine by Carl June, MD, the Richard W. Vague Professor in Immunotherapy, and Bruce Levine, PhD, the Barbara and Edward Netter Professor in Cancer Gene Therapy, involves engineering cells from a patient in the lab, then reinfusing them. The new approach is testing an in vivo method, where the CAR T cells are made directly in the patient’s body.