GOSH statement on new personalised therapy for children with cancer

Professor Persis Amrolia, Consultant in Bone Marrow Transplant at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), says:

“GOSH welcomes the exciting announcement that for children with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (ALL), CAR-T cell therapy will be made available on the NHS.

“This is a landmark moment in the treatment of childhood cancer in the UK. GOSH has been at the forefront of cutting edge personalised CAR-T therapy treatment for a number of years developing similar CAR-T therapies for children with ALL. Since 2012, we have treated over 25 patients from all over the UK with CAR-T therapies. In 2015, we treated the first patient worldwide with gene edited  “universal” CAR-T cells. We are continuing to work on improving CAR-T cell therapy including using “next generation” CAR-T cells to further reduce the chance of relapse.

“We believe that personalised cell therapy treatments, which allow us to tailor treatments to individual patients, can be the silver bullet, offering a real chance of success for children who have run out of all other options.”

Professor Amrolia is also a NIHR Research Professor of Transplantation Immunology at UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health.