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Elizabeth Cheung

Retiree Li Chun underwent various treatments for lymphoma for nine years before a new “living drug” produced in Hong Kong finally made a difference.
The cancerous tumours she had lived with for so long began clearing up after she received treatment under a Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) clinical trial last October.
A big, painful tumour on her thigh was gone within a week. No active cancer cells showed up in her body scan done in mid February.
“I don’t feel much pain and don’t have many problems,” the 73-year-old said, referring to the treatment. “Three words to describe it – quick, nice, great.”
She was among the first five Hong Kong cancer patients to undergo the clinical trial using locally manufactured chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) products.
The others are a girl, five, a boy, 15, a man, 67, and a woman, 71. All are doing well and four were discharged from hospital two to four weeks after receiving the CAR-T infusion.

First approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration in 2017 for cancer treatment, this form of personalised medicine has given hope to patients with some hard-to-treat cancers.
It involves withdrawing blood from a patient to collect T cells, which are part of the immune system. The isolated cells are then genetically engineered to recognise specific cancer cells.
Next, the modified T cells are grown and multiplied in the laboratory before being put back into the patient to seek out and destroy cancer cells.
Professor Li Chi-kong, part of the trial team, said the therapy was known as a “living drug” treatment as the modified cells continued to grow in the patient’s body to maintain the anticancer effect.
CAR-T therapy has taken off internationally, but remains expensive. It has been reported to cost between US$370,000 and US$530,000, excluding hospital fees and treatment of side effects.
It has been available in Hong Kong since 2020 and CUHK said in 2023 that a course of treatment would cost HK$2.8 million.
So far, however, the process of growing the modified cells had to be done in the US and needed four to six weeks before they could be put back in the patients.
In a first, CUHK researchers produced the modified cells in a Hong Kong laboratory, slashing the processing time to just two weeks.
“Why is time so important? Many blood cancer patients can experience rapid disease progression, and their condition may deteriorate to a point where treatment cannot be done,” said Li, a research professor at the university’s department of paediatrics.

Since August last year, two patients with childhood leukaemia and three others with lymphoma have undergone the new treatment using T cell products manufactured at the Hong Kong Institute of Biotechnology laboratory in Sha Tin.
The lab has the international “Good Manufacturing Practice” assurance certification, and Li said the quality of the T cell products made there was equal to that from overseas.
“It has proven that Hong Kong is able to produce a high-standard and high-quality CAR-T cell therapy product,” he said.
The team received funding for 20 patients in the clinical trial, and is still recruiting participants.
Patients in the trial do not have to pay for the treatment, as it is covered by research funding from the government and two charities. The team could not say what the treatment cost, as it was still being developed.


More than 600 people of all ages develop leukaemia each year, according to the Hong Kong Cancer Registry, but Li said only those with a specific type of leukaemia might benefit from CAR-T cell therapy.
The treatment is not suitable for all lymphoma patients, or those with poor heart or liver function and certain infectious diseases.
Li estimated that dozens of patients in Hong Kong could be suitable for CAR-T cell therapy. He said he hoped for more research funding to develop treatments for solid tumours such as liver or lung cancer, as well as the autoimmune disease lupus.
Clinical trial participants such as Li Chun have found CAR-T cell therapy more comfortable than chemotherapy.
She recalled that each chemotherapy session would take three continuous days, whereas the infusion process of CAR-T cell therapy took only a few minutes.
Teenage leukaemia patient Peter*, the first to join the trial last August, said his recovery was quicker compared with chemotherapy.
“I felt relaxed, as if nothing happened,” he said.
First diagnosed with leukaemia in 2022, he underwent chemotherapy for two years, but his condition worsened and his doctors advised him to change treatment.
His mother said the chemotherapy sessions left him feeling tired and nauseous, but during the T cell treatment, Peter carried on playing video games.
Peter is in the recovery stage and undergoing treatment to build up his immune system. He has not returned to school yet, as doctors said a patient would need six months to a year after undergoing CAR-T treatment before going back.
*Name changed at interviewee’s request.


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Chinese University team reports encouraging results and is recruiting more patients to include in CAR-T clinical trial


Chinese University team reports encouraging results and is recruiting more patients to include in CAR-T clinical trial.
