RE:RE:CAR-T updateApril 30, 2024 - Among the layoffs that Bristol Myers Squibb announced today are teams in Washington state, including staffers working on its CAR-T therapy Breyanzi, according to sources familiar with BMS's layoff decisions. This decision follows a FiercePharma January 2024 report of CAR-T infrastructure bottleneck issues.
" Since the FDA approved the first CAR-T therapy back in August 2017, high prices, small patients pools and limited manufacturing capacity have at times hindered these cell-based treatments. As biopharma companies clear those hurdles, a larger, more systemic problem now threatens the drug class. Six CAR-T therapies targeting either CD19 or BCMA have reached the U.S. market to treat various blood cancers. Impressive efficacy data, wide reimbursement acceptance, earlier-line approvals and steady production expansions have fueled blockbuster revenue predictions. But drug developers and Wall Street may have underestimated the bottlenecks from the healthcare infrastructure needed to deliver a cell therapy, Leerink Partners analyst Daina Graybosch, Ph.D., warns."
"But the way in which community doctors refer patients to designated treatment centers and the scale of hospital infrastructure will likely not support some of the most bullish growth projections for CAR-Ts, Graybosch predicts.
“Hospitals across the United States are already overflowing, they’re already filled, emergency rooms are packed. And if CAR-T cells become more mainstream and as earlier lines of therapy, it will just add to the hospital burden,” David Porter, M.D., director of cell therapy and transplant at Penn Medicine, said in an interview.
The infrastructure bottleneck will likely manifest mid-decade, Graybosch said. Solving it will require hospital investments that significantly exceed the current pace, a “revolutionary paradigm shift” in cell therapy delivery, and time to make amends—a long time."
https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/mid-decade-crisis-looms-car-t-cell-therapy#:~:text=The%20infrastructure%20bottleneck%20will%20likely,make%20amends%E2%80%94a%20long%20time.