On Tuesday, the biopharmaceutical company stated that it had obtained conclusive results during a clinical trial carried out at Mont-Saint-Guibert.

A patient suffering from relapsed and refractory acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) received cell therapy developed by Celyad and responded very well to the treatment. The Walloon biotech company stated that he was cured and that this was a world first.

Celyad CEO Christian Homsy stated that the team was thrilled with this initial objective clinical response obtained thanks to CYAAD-01. This is the first time that a patient suffering from AML has achieved complete morphological remission following treatment with genetically-modified T cells and without prior chemotherapy. The CEO added that this success strengthened their approach and confirmed the validity of NKG2D ligands as targets.

The THINK test carried out in Europe and the United States comprises two stages, namely an increase in the dose and an extension stage. For each dose, patients receive three successive administrations of CYAD-01, at two-week intervals. Fourteen patients have so far received doses of the treatment as part of the THINK test.

AML is a blood cancer characterised by a fast and abnormal increase in the white cells in bone marrow, which affects the production of normal blood cells. More than 20,000 people in the United States and almost as many in Europe are diagnosed with this type of blood cancer every year. Specialists expect a growing number of people to be affected by this type of cancer, as the incidence of AML increases with age and the population is ageing.