For ages, cancer has been one of the major and great threats to mankind that causes ill health or death, which requires various therapies and medications to survive and become healthy. In the huge landscape of cancer immunotherapy, natural killer cells, or NK cells, have gained significant attention as an important form of innate immune regulatory cell. NK cells offer a great ability to fight against cancer with their great ability to defeat tumors without prior sensitization.
By the mode of this article, we will help you know the role of NK cells in oncology, their comparison with other immune cells, their benefits, limitations, and much more. Also, it will give an insight into how our company, Globela, is planning and taking initiatives to advance cancer care for mankind.
NK Cells and Their Role in the Innate Immune System
Natural killer cells, or NK cells, are innate immune cells that play a very crucial role in fighting against cancer. These cells have a terrific tendency to kill the tumor cells, regulate immune cells, and facilitate the overall anti-tumor response. NK cells always appear to be the key players in immunosurveillance; i.e., NK cells always help the body for the recognition of abnormal or cancerous cells and frequent elimination of cancerous cells right after recognition.
The anti-tumor feature of these cells is significantly dependent on the secretion of cytokines, lytic granules, and expression of death receptors, thereby preventing tumor development.
Comparison with T-Cells and CAR T-Cells
T cells and CAR T cells, they both are types of immune cells that are used to fight cancer. The difference arises as CAR T cells are genetically modified T cells that are designed specially to recognize and attack tumor cells. Also, CAR T cells have the tendency to use chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) that help to target the specific antigen present on cancer cells.
However, T cells, more specifically CD8+ cells, are central to adaptive immunity. T cells recognize the antigen via T cell receptors (TCRs), which bind to antigens present on major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecules, which ultimately leads to targeted immune responses.
Moreover, NK cells operate through a broader recognition method, allowing them to hit a wide range of tumor cells without any need for antigen specificity.
Benefits of Natural Killer or NK Cell Therapies
There are numerous benefits that NK cell therapy offers over other immunotherapies, especially CAR T cell therapy, like safety profile, a broader approach to target the tumor, and much more. Let’s have a look:
- Reduced Risk of CRS or Cytokine Release Syndrome and Neurotoxicity: While CAR T cells can induce numerous side effects along with CRS and neurotoxicity. However, NK cells always regulate a safer profile, making it customer-friendly and efficient.
- Off-the-Shelf Availability: Natural killer cells can be received from healthy donors, including umbilical cord blood or NK-92 cell lines, which promotes the development of “off-the-shelf” therapies that are always ready to use, which eventually aids in reducing the cost as well as the manufacturing time.
- Potential for Solid Tumor Treatment: Few studies show NK cells can infiltrate solid tumors and possess cytotoxic effects. It significantly expands their therapeutic potential beyond hematologic malignancies.
- Synergistic Effects with Other Therapies: The best part about NK cell therapy is that it can easily be combined with other treatment modalities, including checkpoint inhibitors or monoclonal antibodies, to elevate the antitumor activity and remove the resistance mechanism.
- Anti-tumor efficacy: Natural killer cells have the tendency to kill the cancerous cells without MHC molecules, making them fight against different tumors. They also possess the ability to induce the release of neoantigen, which triggers a better immune response against the tumor.
Global trends in NK cell therapies
The market of NK cell therapy is experiencing exponential growth, accelerated with advancements of cell engineering, increasing research, combination therapies, and manufacturing processes. Various pharmaceutical companies including Globela pharma are also focused on cancer treatment including the development of NK cell therapy. As per reports the market is valued around 2.5 billion US dollars in 2022, and expected to expand at 5.4 billion US dollars by 2028, with a CAGR of 13.70%.
Key trends of NK therapy involve:
Combination Therapies: Even the Pharmaceutical industry is focused on adding NK cells with other treatments, such as checkpoint inhibitors to increase the efficiency of treatment.
Increased Investment and Research: Various pharmaceutical companies are investing rigorously in the R & D department to explore better applications of NK cell therapy.
Regulatory Support: Regulatory pathways are regulated through clinical trials and towards approval.
Allogeneic Therapies: It includes using the off-the-shelf NK cell products to make the therapies more cost efficient and accessible to patients.
Limitations of Natural Killer or NK Cell Therapies
Despite various promising and significant advantages of Natural Killer or NK cell therapy, there are some challenges we need to face while executing these therapies. They include:
- Limited Persistence and Trafficking: NK cells have a short lifespan in vivo, which gives them limited access to migrate and stay at the sites of tumors. This significantly reduces the efficiency of the therapy.
- Tumor Microenvironment Suppression: The immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment has the tendency to inhibit NK cell function processing failure to execute anti-tumor function.
- Immune Evasion Mechanisms: Tumor cells have the tendency to evade NK detection either by upregulating MHC class 1 molecules or downregulating ligands recognized by NK cell receptors, making the treatment more complex.
- Manufacturing and Standardization: While the acceptance of NK therapies at the clinical level in the healthcare sector is growing, establishing standard protocols for expansion, quality control, and genetic modification for NK cells remains an evident hurdle to pass.
Globela’s Commitment to Advancing Oncology Care
At Globela, we believe in bringing revolutions with the potential of NK cell therapies in the field of oncology. With our DSIR-approved R&D units, API development capabilities, and EU-GMP-certified specialized oncology manufacturing, we focus on crafting high-quality, affordable solutions for patients across the world. Our CDMO with skillful experts enables us to support the development and commercialization of new innovative therapies, ensuring the right treatment with cost efficiency reaches the patient globally.
Guided by our belief that “Every Life is Precious,” at Globela, we are totally dedicated to bringing advancements in cell therapies and integrating them into our portfolio. Our zeal for excellence and efforts to help enable us to deliver accessible cancer medicine across 50+ countries, improving the health and quality of life of patients worldwide.
Conclusion
Natural killer cells play a pivotal role in the body’s innate immune system and help to significantly control cancer development and progression. The recent studies focus on exploring immunotherapy for various cancers and their antitumor activity. NK cells show a frontier performance in cancer immunotherapy, providing various benefits over traditional T cell-based therapies.
Despite harsh challenges, the current research and technological advancements are changing the game for better, more accessible, and more effective NK cell therapies. At Globela, we stand at the forefront of this revolution, willing to make changes and innovations for patients suffering from cancer. As the field is continuously progressing and evolving, the integration of NK cell therapies and clinical practice has a huge potential to improve the shape of health in terms of oncology care.
