A combination of cells and viruses and a Trojan horse. It is the bet that a group of researchers from the Niño Jesús Hospital in Madrid launched almost two decades ago and that is about to become a reality to treat the most difficult tumors. The Ministry of Health of Madrid has asked the Medicines Agency of the Ministry of Health for authorization of Celyvir, a non-industrial medicine manufactured by the Madrid health system that does not have any pharmaceutical company behind it.
This is the third medicine of these characteristics that the Community of Madrid develops within its advanced therapies program, as announced by the general director of Research and Teaching, Inmaculada Ibáñez, during her speech at the III Conference of the Advanced Therapies Network of the Community of Madrid.
These drugs are special. They are made from cells from the patients themselves or from other compatible individuals.
The latest to arrive, Celyvir, uses mesenchymal stem cells as a vehicle, a kind of biological taxi to transport a virus designed to selectively eliminate tumor cells without damaging patients’ healthy cells.
Mesenchymal cells are great transporters, capable of reaching all malignant cells to deposit the lethal virus. They are because they have the innate ability to migrate to inflamed areas and tumors. But they also have another added advantage and that is that they know how to hide their weapon from the recognition and possible attack of the immune system. Thus they reach the metastases and release the oncolytic virus against the tumor cells, as if it were a Trojan horse.
An advanced therapy plan
Celyvir joins two other compounds that Madrid healthcare has already contributed to the National System and are designed for non-oncological treatments. This is the case of Alofisel, whose research arose at the La Paz hospital to treat complex perianal fistulas in adult patients with Crohn’s disease. O NC1 that developed the Puerta de Hierro Majadahonda to recover the sensitivity and motor capacity of patients with multiple sclerosis. The latter was the first approved in Spain for non-industrial manufacturing.
Potential immune system
The Community of Madrid has had its own strategy for advanced therapies for six years and a regional plan started in 2022. In addition to the first three ‘live’ medicines, with patient cells, the development of CAR-T treatments is added within hospitals. This strategy, also used in cancer, against hematological tumors, consists of using the patient’s own T lymphocytes, modifying them in the laboratory to strengthen the capacity of the body’s defenses and attack cancer cells.
Catalonia was a pioneer in the use of academic CAR-T, without the help of the pharmaceutical industry. But in the last two years Madrid has managed 430 requests to use the procedure. It has seven large national reference centers to administer them, one in four in Spain, located in the public University hospitals Gregorio Marañón, Niño Jesús, 12 de Octubre, La Paz, Ramón y Cajal and La Princesa, in the capital, in addition to the Puerta de Hierro Majadahonda, reports the Community of Madrid.
The researchers of all these complexes work in a network, which allows them to approach these treatments in a multidisciplinary manner with the integration of actions from all areas to accelerate the innovation process, optimization of resources, homogenization of therapies and favor projection opportunities. global of all its members.
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