CAR Ts can move well beyond cancer, but will need to go allogeneic first

Preclinical studies showing the utility of CAR T cells outside of cancer are ramping up, and developers have taken notice. But turning the modality into a general-purpose tool will require companies to break through safety and commercial barriers that still haven’t been sorted out in cancer.

The critical advance is for the technology to come off-the-shelf, and the risks of neurotoxicity and cytokine release syndrome to be mitigated. ...