In voornoemd artikel komt ook Aslan van Artiva aan het woord:
"By combining NK cells with rituximab, the biotech firm is one of many companies taking advantage of a natural interaction between antibodies and the potent NK-cell activating receptor, CD16. “We are actually using the antibody for the targeting,” says Fred Aslan, chief executive of Artiva Biotherapeutics in San Diego, California, which is also testing this combination. “We have the luxury of not having to engineer our product because it naturally will kill the [cancer] cells once they are tagged by the antibody.” Aslan says that Artiva has enhanced the effect by using only NK cells from umbilical-cord blood donors who have a naturally occurring CD16 variant that binds extra tightly to antibodies.
Initial results from a phase I trial showed that Artiva’s combination shrank or eliminated signs of tumours in four out of six people with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma — three of whom had previously undergone CAR-T therapy without success11. As far as the issue of persistence is concerned, Aslan says, the team’s remedy is simply to give people high doses of NK cells, which is possible because of their safety. “NK cells are not really designed to be one-and-done like CAR-T cells, in terms of their expansion,” he says. He hopes that updated results from the non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma trial, expected later this year, will help to make the case that, at the right doses, even unedited NK cells can produce lasting remission."