CellTrials.org has presented the Advanced Cell Therapy Clinical Trials Report for 2021. Cell therapy saw a surge in 2020 as the number of MSCs (mesenchymal stromal cells) trials started doubled (from 156 to 300), most of which were aimed at treating COVID-19. After the pandemic declined, a total of 773 trials of advanced cell therapies were registered in 2021, a significant decrease from 960 in 2020 and very close to the 2019 and 2018 totals, as shown in the timeline below:
CellsTrial.org has only now published the 2021 data because the compilation of international clinical trial data was temporarily changed because the trial registry website was often unavailable.
As a public service, CellsTrial.org has decided to publish a database of advanced cell therapy clinical trials for COVID-19. The cumulative number of trials for the treatment of COVID-19 with cell therapy in the two years from January 2020 to December 2021 is 195.
CellsTrial.org has decided to publish the breakdown of cell types used in immunotherapy trials in 2021. As we know, the field of immunotherapy exploded after the development of CAR-T therapy, and CAR-T clinical trials continue to dominate. In terms of immunotherapy clinical trials in 2019, CellsTrial.org reports that CAR-T therapy was used in 54% of trials, while T cells were used in 70% of immunotherapy trials.
After two years, including the pandemic outbreak, the importance and usefulness of T cells has been shown to be virtually unchanged.
CellsTrial.org has pointed out that the second most important cell type for immunotherapy is Natural Killer (NK) cells, including expanded NK cells, CAR-NK cells and activated or induced NK cells. It is noted that there is an important difference between these two types of therapy, namely that most CAR-T therapies are autologous, while most NK therapies are allogeneic.
