Eureka's CAR-T Drug Shrinks Liver Cancer for Some in Small Study

  • Tumors recede in three of six patients; one had full response
  • Treatment didn’t come with often-dangerous side effects

An exam bed sits in a room at a hospital

Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg
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Eureka Therapeutics Inc., a closely held biotechnology company, said that liver cancer patients getting its CAR-T therapy responded to the treatment, one of the first times the immune-system modifying treatments have been shown to work in solid tumors.

Three of the six liver cancer patients in the Chinese study had their tumors shrink after receiving the treatment, and one patient, a 52-year-old man, had no signs of cancer after six months. The patients -- all of whom previously failed multiple drugs -- also showed no signs of cytokine release syndrome, a potentially harmful side effect caused by the immune system’s powerful attack on malignant cells following treatment.