Mexico City, Mexico — Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard says Mexico will have a new leukemia cancer treatment that will be able to save thousands of lives. Ebrard made the announcement Monday from India.
He reported that scientists anticipate clinical tests of cell therapy will begin in Mexico this year, and is one of the most innovative and effective treatments against cancer.
A new cell therapy against cancer, potentially more effective than current treatments, will arrive in Mexico from India, Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard Casaubon announced.
The Foreign Secretary led a delegation of Mexican scientists and diplomats that visited the laboratories of ImmunoACT, an Indian company based in Mumbai.
ImmunoACT developed the so-called CAR T cell therapy, which uses the modified cells of cancer patients themselves to fight cancer.
The foreign minister said that today, this therapy costs half a million dollars in the United States, “so we are going to make it accessible to the people, that is, that we can have it in the public system and Mexicans can access that technology.
“That’s what our job is, that’s what the president asked us to look at, this particular technology and the Indian and Iraqi governments and ImmunoACT are helping us to do that,” he said in a statement.
This type of cell therapy has demonstrated safety and efficacy and has regulatory approval in the United States as well as in several European countries.
Secretary Ebrard emphasized that with the technology, “We will be able to save thousands of lives of people who have leukemia and that we cannot save now.”
Monday’s visit follows up on an agreement signed on November 8, 2022 between the “Salvador Zubirán” National Institute of Medical Sciences and Nutrition (INCMNSZ), the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN) and ImmunoACT for technology transfer to Mexico of therapies CAR T cell phones to care for cancer patients.
As a result of this visit, a technology transfer plan is being initiated so that the therapy benefits Mexican patients in the short and medium term.
With financing from the Mexican Agency for International Development Cooperation (Amexcid), the first clinical trial of CAR T therapies will be carried out with Mexican patients, after complying with due regulatory process, and consequently they will receive this therapy during the course of the present year.
The process has been accompanied by the health and regulatory authorities, with face-to-face and virtual meetings between Amexcid, scientists and the Federal Commission for Protection against Sanitary Risks (Cofepris).
