Marrying CARs and bispecifics for solid tumors

Companies are split on whether CAR T cells or bispecifics will be most efficacious in solid tumors, but one group thinks the best bet is to combine the approaches. A Harvard Medical School team unveiled a bispecific-secreting CAR T cell last month in Nature Biotechnology.

The group’s T cells expressed a CAR targeting EGFRvIII -- a mutation found in 30% of glioblastomas -- and secreted an anti-CD3, anti-EGFR bispecific molecule. More than 80% of glioblastomas express EGFR (see Distillery). ...