Biotech Values

[mcbio]

In that regard, I don't think suicide switches are going to be the key for CAR-Ts in the long term. The suicide switch effectively removes the engineered cells from the circulation, so it also kills efficacy. The point of an adaptive strategy is to minimize AEs while maintaining efficacy and/or maximize efficacy while maintaining AEs. Suicide switches reduce AEs by removing efficacy, and I don't see that as a meaningful long-term strategy for CAR-T.

Thanks for the comments. I guess I think about the suicide switch as a safety valve. If there are issues and it needs to be activated, then yes that ongoing therapy is likely not going to be suitable. But, for those instances where it does not need to be activated, you still may have a very valuable therapy. It basically serves as an insurance policy to me in case things go awry in patients. That would seem to me to be valuable in light of JUNO's issues and the broader concerns that may evoke.

But, sure, if a better construct comes along that may remove the threat of those safety issues in the first place, I guess that would be the ultimate goal. That would seem like a tall order though and don't know how you could have assurance that there wouldn't be a potential safety issue to come down the road (nice to have insurance policy in this case I would think a la a safety switch).