Episode # 3 • 17 Jan 2025
Scaling Community CAR-T: Operational Lessons & Future Directions
with Dr. Mike Byrne, Aaron Lyss
How does delivering CAR-T in the community change patient care, and what has to happen next for these programs to scale? On this episode of the BackTable Tumor Board Podcast, host Aaron Lyss interviews Dr. Mike Byrne, hematologist at Tennessee Oncology and medical director for cellular therapy at OneOncology, about operational lessons and future directions for outpatient CAR-T therapy. They discuss the impact of faster time to treatment, building trust through local relationships, and the weekly pipeline management that keeps the program moving.
Timestamps
00:00 - Introduction
02:21 - Patient Impact and Access to Therapy
04:42 - Reducing Friction in the Referral Pathway
07:50 - Expectations Versus Reality in Program Development
10:35 - Managing the Weekly Patient Pipeline
13:08 - Priorities for the Next Generation of CAR T
16:14 - Iterating on CD19 Constructs and Manufacturing
19:07 - Safety Profiles and Care Delivery Models
23:54 - Cellular Therapy in Autoimmune Disease
27:47 - Allogeneic and In Vivo CAR T
32:09 - Wrap Up and Closing Remarks
Resources
- KITE-363 and KITE-753 in relapsed or refractory B-cell lymphoma, the dual targeting CD19 and CD20 CAR T program
- KITE-363 in refractory autoimmune disease, the autoimmune arm of the same construct
- iMMagine-1, pivotal study of anitocabtagene autoleucel, the BCMA CAR T with a December FDA decision date
- First in human data for in vivo CAR T in multiple myeloma, presented at the ASH annual meeting
- In vivo CAR T cell therapy, review of the 2025 ASH annual meeting updates
- American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting
- Michael T. Byrne, DO, FACP, physician profile at Tennessee Oncology
- OneOncology appoints Dr. Michael Byrne as Medical Director for Cellular Therapy
- Aaron Lyss on the administrative demands of bringing CAR T into community practice
You may also like
More about this episode
Dr. Byrne describes two groups the program has reached: patients with rapidly progressing disease who could not withstand referral delays, and patients with low health literacy who followed treatment recommendations from their local oncologist. He describes operational changes that reduced vein-to-vein time to about a third of published figures and enabled the program to function independently of any single individual. The conversation then shifts to the future of cell therapy, covering innovations such as dual-targeting CD19 and CD20 constructs with a 4-1BB arm and shorter manufacturing times, the safety thresholds community oncology will use to select new products, early developments in autoimmune disease and the potential need for rheumatology partnerships, and whether allogeneic and in vivo CAR-T can reach patients in what Dr. Byrne calls cell therapy deserts. The episode closes by addressing ongoing challenges in access, evolving institutional partnerships, and the need for mature data as CAR-T therapy expands across new settings.
The Materials available on BackTable are provided for informational and educational purposes only and are not a substitute for the independent professional judgment of a qualified healthcare professional in diagnosing or treating patients. Any opinions, statements, or views expressed are those of the individual contributors and do not necessarily reflect those of the publisher, platform, or any affiliated organization.