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COMy 2025 | The therapeutic potential of RAPA-201 in R/R multiple myeloma
In this video, Binod Dhakal, MD, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI, introduces a rapamycin-resistant polyclonal Th1/Tc1 cell therapy (RAPA-201), a therapeutic approach in which polyclonal autologous T-cells are epigenetically reprogrammed through mTOR inhibition and IFN-α polarization to promote a more stem-like, effector-memory T-cell phenotype. Dr Dhakal reports promising results from an initial clinical trial (NCT04176380) investigating RAPA-201 in heavily pretreated patients with relapsed/refractory (R/R) multiple myeloma (MM), highlighting that the safety profile was favorable and the efficacy data encouraging. This interview took place at the 11th World Congress on Controversies in Multiple Myeloma (COMy) in Paris, France.
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Transcript
So RAPA-201 is basically you can call it metabolically engineered T-cells. Instead of genetically engineered T-cells, we are using the T-cells and trying to make them more fit. So we take the T-cells from the patient and then grow them under rapamycin with cytokine polarization to one particular type of T-cells, more of an effective phenotype with more stem cell-like memory...
So RAPA-201 is basically you can call it metabolically engineered T-cells. Instead of genetically engineered T-cells, we are using the T-cells and trying to make them more fit. So we take the T-cells from the patient and then grow them under rapamycin with cytokine polarization to one particular type of T-cells, more of an effective phenotype with more stem cell-like memory. So it’s basically, you know, ex vivo manipulation, but not doing genetic engineering. So this is our strategy and we did a small study that was recently published.
And the data looks quite impressive in a sense that we didn’t have any bad side effects in terms of CRS or ICANS, and those patients were very heavily treated with almost everybody being triple-class refractory patients who were able to respond to almost 65% with a PFS of almost eight to nine months. So this can be one tool for these patients, especially given the safety profile, but we need to look at this in a more larger scale in terms of Phase II and Phase III.
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