Researchers in both academia and industry are turning to
immune-suppressing cells to clamp down on autoimmune disorders, and the effort is building to a fever pitch.
On 24 July, pharmaceutical firm Eli Lilly of Indianapolis, Indiana, announced that it would pay up to US$400 million to support the development of a drug — which entered clinical trials in March — that stimulates these cells, called
regulatory T cells. And in January, Celgene of Summit, New Jersey, announced plans to buy a company working on a similar therapy for $300 million.
Other companies, from tiny biotechs to pharmaceutical heavyweights, are also investing in an approach that could yield treatments for a variety of disorders caused by an immune attack on the body’s own cells. Such conditions include type 1 diabetes, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.
“It’s a field that’s just, like, crazy,” says David Klatzmann, an immunologist at Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, who has been studying regulatory T cells and advises a Paris company called ILTOO Pharma. “The competition is coming very hard. It’s going to be exciting to see where it goes.”
