Adaptimmune T-cell Therapy

For whoever doesn't know them yet, Adaptimmune is the company that genetically engineered T-cells to target NY-ESO in synovial sarcoma and melanoma. Their trial was initially at NIH and then extended to other locations:

https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01343043

Well, Adaptimmune released a lot of good news this week. They made a deal with GSK and now they were just granted breakthrough therapy designation by the FDA:

http://www.adaptimmune.com/news-events/

So far in their studies, only patients who were HLA-A2 positive could participate so many people were not eligible. It looks like they will try to develop the technology so it works for other HLA types which is great news.

The results from the NY-ESO-1 targeting T cells trial from Adaptimmune will be presented at ASCO in June. You can find the abstract here:
http://abstracts.asco.org/199/AbstView_199_193450.html