Canadian-Led Immunotherapies in Cancer (CLIC)

The CLIC research program, established in 2016, brings researchers, clinicians and patients from across Canada together to build Canadian expertise and capacity for innovation in the promising field of cellular immunotherapy for cancer, including CAR-T therapy.

Cellular immunotherapies such as CAR-T cell therapy have shown great promise in treating certain kinds of blood cancer and have potential in treating other cancers as well. CAR-T therapy involves extracting immune cells called T cells from a patient, genetically engineered them to enhance their cancer-killing ability, and then giving them back to the same patient.

The first CLIC clinical trial launched in 2019 at The Ottawa Hospital and at BC Cancer and is showing promising preliminary results. The trial is the first to manufacture CAR-T therapy in Canada.

While Health Canada has approved several commercial CAR-T therapies, access is restricted to people with just a few kinds of leukemia and lymphoma, and only if they fall into certain age ranges. Commercial CAR-T therapy is also very expensive and involves shipping cells to the United States and back.

CLIC uses a different kind of cell manufacturing that opens the door to less expensive and more equitable CAR-T treatment across Canada. It also provides a platform for the development of even better cellular immunotherapies that may work for more kinds of cancer.

Investigators

Dr. Natasha Kekre	Dr. Harold Atkins	Dr. John Bell	Dr. Kevin Hay
Dr. Rob Holt	Dr. Brad Nelson	Dr. John Webb	Dr. Julie Nielsen
Dr. Manoj Lalu	Dr. Kednapa Thavorn	Dr. Dean Fergusson	Dr. Justin Presseau
Dr. Jen Quizi

Funding partners

• BioCanRx
• BC Cancer and BC Cancer Foundation
• The Ottawa Hospital Foundation
• Ontario Institute for Cancer Research
• Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation
• Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Canada
• Canadian Institutes of Health Research
• National Research Council

Core facilities and supporting resources

• The Ottawa Hospital’s Biotherapeutics Manufacturing Centre
• BC Cancer’s Conconi Family Immunotherapy Lab
• Ottawa Methods Centre
• Blueprint Translational Research Group

News

	ELEVATE seed grants to help researchers at The Ottawa Hospital improve treatment for inflammatory and immune conditions February 21, 2024 - The Ottawa Hospital’s Research Institute is awarding four ELEVATE seed grants to help researchers understand the role of inflammation and the immune system in various diseases and develop better treatments.
	Making CAR T Therapies More Accessible January 2, 2024 - “Our study shows there is room for CAR T therapy in the market. We further show that Canadian-made CAR T therapy could be cost-effective and has a much better chance of being funded than existing commercial CAR T therapies.”
	A promising treatment for terminal cancer patients may be just the beginning December 15, 2023 - Researchers in Ottawa and Vancouver are building a made-in-Canada network to treat patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia and other cancers
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	Meet Dr. Natasha Kekre, The Ottawa Hospital’s new Research Chair in Advanced Stem Cell Therapy September 18, 2023 - The best part of Dr. Natasha Kekre’s workday is when she is able to offer hope to her patients through clinical trials. As The Ottawa Hospital’s new Research Chair in Advanced Stem Cell Therapy, Dr. Kekre is looking forward to many more hopeful conve
	Examining CAR-T therapy, person by person June 5, 2023 - Who responds better to CAR-T therapy? Men or women? What dose of the therapy works best?
	Bringing cellular immunotherapy to solid tumours: made-in-Canada approach to be pioneered in biliary tract cancers thanks to $7.4M grant April 13, 2023 - Canadians with biliary tract cancer (cholangiocarcinoma and gallbladder) will have the first chance to benefit from a new made-in-Canada approach to personalized cellular immunotherapy, thanks to a $7.4 million grant from the Canadian Cancer Society
	How patients can improve the way new cancer therapies are assessed January 27, 2023 - Researchers are bringing patient perspectives on new health technologies into the health economic evaluation process.
	Meet Dr. Natasha Kekre January 26, 2023 - A hematologist for our Transplant and Cellular Therapy Program, Dr. Kekre is also an associate scientist in our Clinical Epidemiology Program and an associate professor at the University of Ottawa.
	Made-in-Canada approach enhancing access to groundbreaking CAR-T cancer therapy January 19, 2023 - Researchers at The Ottawa Hospital are partnering with colleagues across the country to expand access to new technology that turns patients’ immune cells into super-charged cancer-killers.
	CAR-T clinical trial provides ‘one last shot’ for leukemia patient January 11, 2023 - Camille Leahy was out of options. Here's what led her to a Canadian-first CAR T-cell therapy clinical trial at our hospital.
	Canadian-Led Immunotherapies in Cancer (CLIC) program inspires innovative CAR-T trial in Denmark December 8, 2022 - CAR-T therapy is a groundbreaking cancer treatment that involves genetically engineering a patient’s own immune cells to attack their cancer. While this therapy is commercially available in many countries, cancer researchers are also developing their
	First made-in-Canada CAR-T cell therapy for cancer shows promise in clinical trial June 17, 2022 - More than a dozen people with cancer who had exhausted all treatment options are alive and cancer-free today thanks to a pioneering Canadian clinical trial of a highly personalized kind of immunotherapy.
	First made-in-Canada CAR-T therapy gives lymphoma patient a third chance January 10, 2022 - Faced with the return of his lymphoma for the third time in ten years, Owen Snider was running out of options. But there was new hope when he was accepted into a made-in-Canada CAR-T therapy clinical trial.
	Cancer team awarded $5M for cell-based immunotherapy research March 3, 2021 - Researchers at The Ottawa Hospital and the University of Ottawa are partnering with colleagues across the country to expand Canada’s capacity to develop new cell-based immunotherapies for cancer with a $5.2 million grant from the Canada Foundation fo
	One small step for blood cancer patients, one giant step for Canadian cancer patients of all stripes February 25, 2021 - The Canadian-Led Immunotherapies in Cancer (CLIC) research program is building Canada’s capacity for innovation in CAR-T therapy, with support from BioCanRx, The Ottawa Hospital, BC Cancer and the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research
	The promise of CAR-T therapy for cancer: meta-analysis shows the big picture August 14, 2019 - CAR-T therapy, which uses a patient’s own genetically modified immune cells, is one of the most exciting advances in cancer treatment. To get a big picture view of the field, Drs. Manoj Lalu and Dean Fergusson led a team that analyzed data from nearl
	Patients and clinical trial experts key to upcoming made-in-Canada CAR-T clinical trial March 1, 2019 - Researchers at The Ottawa Hospital and the University of Ottawa are known around the world for their expertise in designing and leading clinical trials, and they're now applying this knowledge to create a made-in-Canada approach for CAR-T cell cl
	Ottawa researchers to play lead role in new cancer immunotherapy studies February 15, 2017 - BioCanRx funds research into CAR-T and virus-infected cell therapy Researchers from The Ottawa Hospital and the University of Ottawa will play a lead role in cutting-edge research on cancer immunotherapy, thanks to five new peer-reviewed researc