I also listened to the presentation. His last sentence, whilst not great, was 'we need to find a way of getting beyond FluCy if we want to grow this product'.
The last sentence in the last slide also said toxicity was related to the number of lines of therapy as well as repeated FluCy, which is why they continued to dose attenuate FluCy.
It doesn't mean that Azer Cel in itself is toxic, but it does sound that in combination with repeated doses of FluCy in patients that have had multiple lines of therapy, there were cases of reported toxicity.
I'm no medical person either, but just google lymphodepletion toxicity, and you'll find plenty of medical abstracts discussing the toxicity of these drugs that condition the body for CAR-T, and it is noted that Fludarabine (the Flu in FluCy) is toxic.
I don't know why he is suggesting Azer-Cel is stumped or has a dependency solely on FluCy over alternatives.
If you read down the following article to the section 'Currently used substance and lymphodepleting regimes,' you'll see that FluCy is not the only lymphodepleting substance.
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/immunology/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2023.1303935/full
It would be improbably that Imugene wasn't aware of all this when they acquired Azer-Cel, so you have to give them the opportunity to run their own trials and regimes. And it may be some alternative is there that makes toxicity less of an issue.
Also, his statement grow this product could mean that FluCy is currently the most accepted lymphodepleting regime, so whilst Azer-cel has an inherent value, its maximum value may not be realised until there is a better alternative to FluCy.
And none of the above makes it anything less than invaluable for DLBCL patients who relapsed following CAR-T, which remains an unmet need.
