Why does RMS’s therapy not require immunosuppressive drugs?

The need for lifelong immunosuppressive therapy is one of the most significant limitations of existing cell transplantation approaches for diabetes, including cadaveric islet transplantation. These drugs work by broadly suppressing the immune system to prevent it from rejecting transplanted cells, but in doing so, they significantly increase patients’ long-term vulnerability to infections, certain cancers, and other serious health consequences. They represent a substantial and ongoing clinical burden that limits the suitability of many cell therapies for widespread patient use.

RMS is specifically designing its iPSC-based therapy to eliminate this requirement. In its autologous approach, the cells used for transplantation are derived from the patient’s own body, reprogrammed from the patient’s own adult cells and differentiated into ILCs. Because these cells carry the patient’s own genetic identity, the immune system is far less likely to recognize them as foreign and mount a rejection response.

In its allogeneic approach, RMS is pursuing strategies to engineer immune compatibility at the cellular level, addressing the immune challenge through the design of the cells themselves, rather than through systemic immune suppression. Successfully eliminating the need for immunosuppressive drugs would represent a significant advance over existing cell therapies and is a central goal of RMS’s preclinical development program.

Learn how RMS’s therapy is designed to avoid immunosuppression.