Anti-CD7 CAR-T Cells in Relapsed/Refractory T-Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia or Lymphoma

Despite favorable outcomes in newly diagnosed patients, approximately 20% of pediatric and young adult T-ALL patients and 40% of adult patients will have refractory disease or will relapse within 2 years of their initial diagnosis. Survival rates of patients with relapsed disease remain below 35%. For recurrent disease, allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) is the only known potentially curative treatment. However, a prerequisite to HSCT is obtaining a complete remission, which remains a significant challenge as only 40 to 50% of patients achieve a second remission with current reinduction regimens with salvage rates even lower for patients with disease that is refractory to first-line chemotherapy.

BEAM-201 is an allogeneic anti-CD7 CAR T cell product that has shown promising early evidence of efficacy, with 3 out of 4 adult T-ALL patients infused had a CRi/CR ≥28 days after infusion. Safety of BEAM-201 has been favorable and consistent with known adverse events associated with other CAR T cell therapies.

Given the current treatment landscape of T-ALL/T-LLy, promising clinical experience with BEAM-201, and that \>98% of T-ALL cases highly and homogenously express CD7 protein on the surfaces of their lymphoblasts, the investigators think there is compelling rationale in further investigating the safety and efficacy of BEAM-201 in pediatric patients.