In this ASH 2018 annual meeting we’ve seen the presentation of a very nice study looking into the results of CTL, cytotoxic T lymphocyte, directed against EBV in EBV PTLD with the CNS localisation. This is actually very exciting because this is unfortunately an unmet medical need – when these patients fail the standard usual treatment actually we do not have much tools to intervene. This is where the results of this study are very exciting, showing a very high response rate above 60% with a significant number of complete remissions and extended survival. So definitely this is great news for this relatively rare entity with little therapeutic options, highlighting clearly the power of cellular therapy these days. This is quite amazing I would say.

So far 19 patients were reported at this annual meeting but obviously there is a follow up and more patients will be treated in the near future. The advent of cellular therapies directed against EBV PTLD is really a very important step because we’ve been struggling with this relatively rare complication for many years and actually this approach is proving both effective and safe. So this is really very exciting. Obviously we will need to have also phase III trials, this is ongoing, but definitely the already available results are clearly showing that the treatment strategy is likely to be the right one and we are on the right track.