Companies Economy Live May 1, 2025 0 Comments

SunAct opens Mumbai facility, plans for more centres to provide CAR-T therapies across India

SunAct’s centres are about 5 – 8 bed facilities, allowing as many patients to take the treatment

Oncology start-up SunAct Advanced Cancer Therapies has launched its third facility in India, which is also its first in Mumbai, that will offer CAR-T therapies for solid-state tumours, company representatives said.

This is the third such centre in about nine months, with another likely to come up by mid-May in Nashik, said Vijay Patil, oncologist and SunAct Founder. The other two centres are in Thane and Kerala, with the latter coming up as recently as two weeks ago, Patil told businessline, adding that the aim was to take such centres to the “patients backyard”, where they can access CAR-T therapies.

Plans are in the pipeline for similar centres in Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru, he said, expecting at least two to start this year. There is a year long follow-up, he said, explaining why it was necessary to take the therapy closer to patients. The company was getting enquiries on the therapy from West Asia, he said, besides other parts of the country.

CAR-T therapies involve taking the patient’s blood and separating the T cells (tasked with identifying and destroying cancer cells). This is engineered and put back into the patient to attack the cancer cells. The patient samples will be sent to the central production centre in Mumbai, Patil said, where it would be engineered and sent back.

SunAct’s centres are about 5 – 8 bed facilities, allowing as many patients to take the treatment. The total cost to the patient ranges between ₹60 to ₹80 lakh for a single infusion, he said, which is a fraction of the cost these products cost internationally.

SunAct, founded by doctors Vijay Patil and Ashay Karpe, is among a handful of companies researching CAR-T therapies in India. Its Mumbai (Khar) centre will offer CAR-T for haematological cancers like Lymphoma, Leukemia and Myeloma, besides addressing solid tumours, the company said.