Current State of the Art of Allogeneic CAR Approaches - Pile 'Em High and Sell 'Em Cheap

The advent and rapid propagation of Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR)-based therapeutics in recent years has taken the oncology field by storm and delivered considerable benefit to cancer patients, many of whom previously had no other treatment options available to them. CAR-based therapies are now a bona fide therapeutic modality in the fight against cancer, along with more "traditional" treatments, such as small molecule and antibody drugs. For the technology to take the next step and reach much larger numbers of patients in need, it will be necessary for those treatments to become "off-the-shelf" offering patients a standardised, consistent, and cost-effective product. This article offers an overview of the evolution and development options for off-the-shelf CAR-based treatments, the advantages and disadvantages of the various approaches, along with key optimisation parameters that must be considered.