{"id":237949,"date":"2026-05-29T02:44:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T07:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/efficacy-and-safety-of-durcabtagene-autoleucel-in-a-phase-1-trial-for-patients-with-relapsed-refractory-multiple-myeloma"},"modified":"2026-05-29T02:44:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T07:44:10","slug":"efficacy-and-safety-of-durcabtagene-autoleucel-in-a-phase-1-trial-for-patients-with-relapsed-refractory-multiple-myeloma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/efficacy-and-safety-of-durcabtagene-autoleucel-in-a-phase-1-trial-for-patients-with-relapsed-refractory-multiple-myeloma","title":{"rendered":"Efficacy and safety of durcabtagene autoleucel in a phase 1 trial for patients with relapsed\/refractory multiple myeloma"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Prolonged manufacturing times for autologous CAR T cell therapies can be incompatible with rapidly progressive disease (PD), resulting in increased need for bridging therapy to achieve disease stabilization. Bridging therapy was required for most patients receiving cilta-cel and ide-cel in clinical trials (75 and 87%, respectively) (7<\/i><\/a>, 9<\/i><\/a>, 11<\/i><\/a>, 12<\/i><\/a>). Although use of bridging therapy may not affect ORR, CRR, or PFS, it is associated with worse overall survival (15<\/i><\/a>). Similarly, as wait times for CAR T cell product increase, so does risk of mortality as effectiveness of the therapy decreases (16<\/i><\/a>, 17<\/i><\/a>), highlighting the need for improved CAR T cell products with faster and more reliable manufacturing.<\/p>\n

Another issue associated with traditionally manufactured CAR T cell products is T cell exhaustion due to extended periods of in vitro stimulation and expansion during manufacturing (18<\/i><\/a>). Higher levels of exhausted T cells were also observed in the leukapheresis material and final products from patients who later experienced PD (18<\/i><\/a>). T cell exhaustion can result in poor persistence of CAR T cells in the body, thereby impeding function as the proliferation and survival of transferred T cells strongly correlate with their antitumor activity (19<\/i><\/a>\u201322<\/i><\/a>). Specific T cell populations have varying abilities to expand and persist in vivo. Memory (CD8+<\/sup>CD45RO\u2212<\/sup>CD27+<\/sup>) and naive T cell (TN<\/sub> cell) subsets are associated with improved clinical response, given their ability to proliferate and persist after infusion, whereas effector T cell subsets comparatively exhibit lower self-renewal and survival capabilities (19<\/i><\/a>, 23<\/i><\/a>, 24<\/i><\/a>). Although these patient-specific parameters are initially established in leukapheresis material, preservation of such cell populations in the final product via manufacturing techniques may improve the antitumor activity of a patient\u2019s CAR T cell therapy (18<\/i><\/a>, 19<\/i><\/a>, 23<\/i><\/a>, 24<\/i><\/a>).<\/p>\n

Durcabtagene autoleucel (PHE885) is an autologous, BCMA-targeting CAR T cell therapy carrying a CAR construct with a fully human anti-BCMA single-chain fragment variable (scFv) fused to 4-1BB\/CD3\u03b6 signaling domains manufactured on a next-generation platform. Prior work has shown that this platform can successfully manufacture product in fewer than 2 days by eliminating the need for ex vivo expansion, thereby preserving overall T cell stemness (the ability of T cells to self-renew and mature), which results in a final product with greater proliferative potential and fewer exhausted T cells (18<\/i><\/a>). Here, we present the findings of part A of the phase 1 study (NCT04318327) of durcabtagene autoleucel in r\/r MM, along with correlative analyses of the product before and after infusion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prolonged manufacturing times for autologous CAR T cell therapies can be incompatible with rapidly progressive disease (PD), resulting in increased need for bridging therapy to achieve disease stabilization. Bridging therapy was required for most patients receiving cilta-cel and ide-cel in clinical trials (75 and 87%, respectively) (7, 9, 11, 12). Although use of bridging therapy [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1635],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-237949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-materials"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237949\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}