A woman with advanced ovarian cancer has become the first patient in the world to receive a pioneering new therapy.
Tracy Tomlinson was given the drug at The Christie hospital in Manchester as part of a clinical trial evaluating a new type of treatment for several types of cancer.
The therapy, known as ZI-MA4-1, will be tested on people with ovarian cancer, lung cancer, sarcomas and head and neck cancer in a trial led by the Christie, and a site at the Royal Marsden in London.
The 58-year-old, from Chadderton, Oldham, decided almost straight away she was going to go for it, she said, although she admitted it was a “little bit scary” being the first person to have the treatment.
Many people in the early stage study – which is primarily focused on safety – have few other options for survival.
Tomlinson has already beaten the odds in staying alive, having undergone surgery and several rounds of chemotherapy since she was diagnosed in 2020.
The new therapy works by combining two powerful methods in fighting cancer.
Firstly, it harnesses the body’s natural killer cells, which are specialist immune cells that destroy abnormal ones.
Secondly, T-cell receptors on the cells are engineered to recognise and target tumours producing a protein called Mage-A4.
Mage-A4 is found in several types of cancer and experts believe it is an ideal target for attacking abnormal cells.
Unlike some personalised treatments, ZI-MA4-1 is designed as an “off-the-shelf” therapy that uses immune cells from donors.
The treatment is manufactured in advance from donor cells rather than being individually tailored to each patient, with hundreds of doses produced from a single manufacturing batch.
Experts believe this could mean advanced cell therapies are available to more patients more quickly, and at a cheaper cost.