A Phase 1 interventional study of Experimental Intervention in B Cell Malignancies, B-cell Leukemia and B Cell Lymphoma, sponsored by University Hospital, Basel, Switzerland. Not yet recruiting at 1 site in Switzerland. Open to participants aged 18 Years and older. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2025-12-24.
Sponsored by University Hospital, Basel, Switzerland · Phase 1, Interventional, and Treatment
This study is to provide locally produced, bispecific CD19 CD20 CAR T cells to patients with B-cell lymphoma/leukemia who have no access to commercial CAR T cells or who have relapsed thereafter. The primary objective is to assess the safety of bispecific anti-CD19, anti- CD20 CAR T cell-therapies after lymphodepleting chemotherapy in patients with B cell malignancies with exhausted standard treatment options.
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells are engineered T-lymphocytes with artificial receptors, containing domains of a T cell receptor as well as a B cell receptor with predefined specificity to a target antigen. In patients with relapsed or refractory (r/r) B-cell malignancies, who would otherwise have a poor prognosis, CD19-directed CAR T cell therapy showed high response rates. A common cause of relapse is loss of the target antigen on the tumor cells, e.g. CD19. In such cases, further approved treatment options are very limited to date, but recent preclinical and early clinical studies have shown that bispecific anti-CD19, anti-CD20 CAR T cells can overcome this hurdle, adding a second target and leading to excellent outcomes in heavily pretreated patients.
This study is to provide locally produced, bispecific CD19 CD20 CAR T cells to patients with B-cell lymphoma/leukemia who have no access to commercial CAR T cells or who have relapsed thereafter. The primary objective is to assess the safety of bispecific anti-CD19, anti- CD20 CAR T cell-therapies after lymphodepleting chemotherapy in patients with B cell malignancies with exhausted standard treatment options. A secondary objective is the assessment of efficacy.
190 studies on the registry are indexed under Leukemia, B-Cell; 52 are open to participants now.
This study's planned enrollment of 12 is below the median of 39 across 162 interventional studies indexed under Leukemia, B-Cell.
Browse Leukemia, B-Cell studies →University Hospital, Basel, Switzerland is the lead sponsor of 990 studies on the registry; 189 are open to participants now.
Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.
Go through the criteria one by one — yes, no or not sure — and take the list to your doctor or the study team. Kept in this browser only.
Diagnosis of B-cell NHL or B-ALL with , refractory disease and no available standard therapeutic options (including commercially accessible CAR T products), including:
Adequate organ function and bone marrow reserve, unless clearly caused by lymphoma and considered reversible, defined as:
Exclusion Criteria:
Underlined terms in the criteria open these too. Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Relapsed: the illness came back after treatment had worked. Refractory: it did not respond to treatment, or stopped responding while still on it.
A scale of how much an illness limits everyday activity. For people being assessed to join a study, scores run from 0 (fully active) to 4; lower is more active.
Studies most often ask for 0–1 or 0–2. Your doctor gives the score; the WHO scale uses the same steps. The full scale also has 5, which records death.
Before you join, the study team explains what taking part involves — its purpose, what happens, the risks and possible benefits — and answers your questions, so you can decide freely. Consent is usually recorded on a form (the informed consent form, ICF) signed by you or, where the law allows, by someone legally authorised to decide for you.
You can keep asking questions during the study, you are told of new information that matters, and you can choose to leave at any time.
Two enzymes measured in a routine blood test of the liver. Higher levels can mean the liver is under strain or damaged. SGPT and SGOT are older names for ALT and AST.
Criteria usually give a limit as a multiple of the upper limit of normal (ULN), often higher when cancer has spread to the liver.
The top of the normal range for a blood test, as set by the laboratory that runs it. Each lab prints its own range next to your result.
“≤ 2.5 × ULN” means the result can be up to two and a half times that top value.
A yellow substance made when red blood cells are broken down, which the liver clears. A high level can mean a problem with the liver or the bile ducts.
Criteria often allow more for people with Gilbert’s syndrome, a harmless inherited condition that raises bilirubin.
How quickly the kidneys clear creatinine, a waste product, from the blood. A study may estimate it from a blood test with age, weight and sex (often by the Cockcroft–Gault formula), or measure it using blood and urine collected over a set time. Given in mL/min; higher is better.
From a breathing test (spirometry): how much air you can blow out in the first second. Often given as a percentage of what is expected for your age, height and sex.
The share of blood the heart’s main pumping chamber (the left ventricle) pushes out with each beat, measured by an echocardiogram (heart ultrasound) or a MUGA scan. About 50–70% is normal.
Judged by the study doctor to matter for your health or for the study. It is a doctor’s decision, so ask the study team if you are unsure whether something counts.
The protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen. A low level is anaemia, which can cause tiredness and breathlessness. Measured in g/dL or g/L (9 g/dL is 90 g/L).
Blood cells that help blood clot. Too few raises the risk of bleeding and bruising. A usual adult range is about 150–400 × 10⁹/L (150,000–400,000 per µL); each lab has its own reference range.
The number of neutrophils, white blood cells that help fight infection, in a given amount of blood. Too few raises the risk of infection.
It is a count, not a percentage of the white cells. Limits are written in units that mean the same: ≥ 1.5 × 10⁹/L is ≥ 1,500 per mm³ (µL). Each lab has its own reference range.
Ways of preventing pregnancy. “Highly effective” methods fail less than 1% of the time a year when used correctly — for example an IUD or an implant.
Criteria usually say which methods count and how long to keep using them after the last dose, sometimes for male participants too. Some studies accept a partner’s vasectomy if it was confirmed successful and that person is the participant’s only sexual partner.
Able to become pregnant: from the first period until menopause, unless permanently unable to through surgery (removal of the womb, or of both ovaries or both fallopian tubes).
Criteria for people of childbearing potential usually ask for a negative pregnancy test and for contraception during the study and for a time after it.
Anti-inflammatory medicines such as prednisone, prednisolone and dexamethasone — not the anabolic steroids used for muscle.
Studies differ in what they allow: check which steroid medicines, routes (tablets, injections, creams, inhalers, eye drops) and doses this study accepts.
A weakened immune system. It can come from an illness, such as HIV or some blood cancers, or from medicines that turn the immune system down, for example after an organ transplant or for an autoimmune disease; steroids at higher doses count.
Read whether the line is about a condition or about medicines, and which medicines and doses it means.
A condition in which the immune system attacks the body’s own tissues, such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, psoriasis, type 1 diabetes or inflammatory bowel disease.
Immunotherapy studies often leave out active autoimmune disease, and some name exceptions, such as thyroid disease on replacement hormone. Check the exceptions this study lists.
Malignancy means cancer. Criteria about another or earlier malignancy ask whether you have had a different cancer, usually within a set number of years.
Some are commonly allowed, such as treated skin cancers other than melanoma and early cancers removed completely — check the exceptions this study lists.
Hepatitis B is a virus that infects the liver. These are separate tests: HBsAg positive usually means a current infection (a recent vaccination can briefly cause it too); total anti-HBc (HBcAb) positive means an infection now or in the past; HBV DNA measures how much virus is in the blood.
Some studies accept a past infection if HBV DNA is undetectable, sometimes with antiviral medicine during the study. Check what this study allows.
Hepatitis C is a virus that infects the liver. An HCV antibody test can stay positive after an infection has cleared (and is occasionally positive without one); an HCV RNA test shows whether the virus is there now.
After treatment, hepatitis C counts as cured when HCV RNA is still undetectable 12 weeks or more after the treatment ended. Studies often accept people cured this way.
The human immunodeficiency virus, which weakens the immune system.
Many studies now accept people whose HIV is controlled on treatment, judged by the viral load and the CD4 count. Check the limits this study sets.
A reason a treatment, test or procedure should not be given to a particular person, such as an allergy, another illness or a medicine they take.
An allergy, or another reaction of the immune system, to a substance. “Hypersensitivity to the study drug” means a known allergic reaction to it — not every side effect a medicine can have.
Stem cell (bone marrow) transplants. Allogeneic uses cells from a donor; autologous uses your own cells, collected earlier and given back.
After a transplant from a donor, the donor’s immune cells attack the recipient’s body, often the skin, gut or liver.
A drug or device being studied in a clinical trial.
It may be new, or already approved and being studied for another use, dose or form. Criteria often leave out people who took part in another study of one within a recent period, commonly 30 days or five half-lives.
Relapsed and refractory
Relapsed: the illness came back after treatment had worked. Refractory: it did not respond to treatment, or stopped responding while still on it.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
ECOG performance status
A scale of how much an illness limits everyday activity. For people being assessed to join a study, scores run from 0 (fully active) to 4; lower is more active.
Studies most often ask for 0–1 or 0–2. Your doctor gives the score; the WHO scale uses the same steps. The full scale also has 5, which records death.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Informed consent
Before you join, the study team explains what taking part involves — its purpose, what happens, the risks and possible benefits — and answers your questions, so you can decide freely. Consent is usually recorded on a form (the informed consent form, ICF) signed by you or, where the law allows, by someone legally authorised to decide for you.
You can keep asking questions during the study, you are told of new information that matters, and you can choose to leave at any time.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
ALT and AST (liver enzymes)
Two enzymes measured in a routine blood test of the liver. Higher levels can mean the liver is under strain or damaged. SGPT and SGOT are older names for ALT and AST.
Criteria usually give a limit as a multiple of the upper limit of normal (ULN), often higher when cancer has spread to the liver.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
ULN (upper limit of normal)
The top of the normal range for a blood test, as set by the laboratory that runs it. Each lab prints its own range next to your result.
“≤ 2.5 × ULN” means the result can be up to two and a half times that top value.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Bilirubin
A yellow substance made when red blood cells are broken down, which the liver clears. A high level can mean a problem with the liver or the bile ducts.
Criteria often allow more for people with Gilbert’s syndrome, a harmless inherited condition that raises bilirubin.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Creatinine clearance (CrCl)
How quickly the kidneys clear creatinine, a waste product, from the blood. A study may estimate it from a blood test with age, weight and sex (often by the Cockcroft–Gault formula), or measure it using blood and urine collected over a set time. Given in mL/min; higher is better.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
FEV1
From a breathing test (spirometry): how much air you can blow out in the first second. Often given as a percentage of what is expected for your age, height and sex.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
LVEF (left ventricular ejection fraction)
The share of blood the heart’s main pumping chamber (the left ventricle) pushes out with each beat, measured by an echocardiogram (heart ultrasound) or a MUGA scan. About 50–70% is normal.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Clinically significant
Judged by the study doctor to matter for your health or for the study. It is a doctor’s decision, so ask the study team if you are unsure whether something counts.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Hemoglobin (Hb)
The protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen. A low level is anaemia, which can cause tiredness and breathlessness. Measured in g/dL or g/L (9 g/dL is 90 g/L).
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Platelets
Blood cells that help blood clot. Too few raises the risk of bleeding and bruising. A usual adult range is about 150–400 × 10⁹/L (150,000–400,000 per µL); each lab has its own reference range.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Absolute neutrophil count (ANC)
The number of neutrophils, white blood cells that help fight infection, in a given amount of blood. Too few raises the risk of infection.
It is a count, not a percentage of the white cells. Limits are written in units that mean the same: ≥ 1.5 × 10⁹/L is ≥ 1,500 per mm³ (µL). Each lab has its own reference range.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Contraception
Ways of preventing pregnancy. “Highly effective” methods fail less than 1% of the time a year when used correctly — for example an IUD or an implant.
Criteria usually say which methods count and how long to keep using them after the last dose, sometimes for male participants too. Some studies accept a partner’s vasectomy if it was confirmed successful and that person is the participant’s only sexual partner.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Childbearing potential
Able to become pregnant: from the first period until menopause, unless permanently unable to through surgery (removal of the womb, or of both ovaries or both fallopian tubes).
Criteria for people of childbearing potential usually ask for a negative pregnancy test and for contraception during the study and for a time after it.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Corticosteroids (steroids)
Anti-inflammatory medicines such as prednisone, prednisolone and dexamethasone — not the anabolic steroids used for muscle.
Studies differ in what they allow: check which steroid medicines, routes (tablets, injections, creams, inhalers, eye drops) and doses this study accepts.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Immunosuppression
A weakened immune system. It can come from an illness, such as HIV or some blood cancers, or from medicines that turn the immune system down, for example after an organ transplant or for an autoimmune disease; steroids at higher doses count.
Read whether the line is about a condition or about medicines, and which medicines and doses it means.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Autoimmune disease
A condition in which the immune system attacks the body’s own tissues, such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, psoriasis, type 1 diabetes or inflammatory bowel disease.
Immunotherapy studies often leave out active autoimmune disease, and some name exceptions, such as thyroid disease on replacement hormone. Check the exceptions this study lists.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Cancer (malignancy)
Malignancy means cancer. Criteria about another or earlier malignancy ask whether you have had a different cancer, usually within a set number of years.
Some are commonly allowed, such as treated skin cancers other than melanoma and early cancers removed completely — check the exceptions this study lists.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Hepatitis B tests
Hepatitis B is a virus that infects the liver. These are separate tests: HBsAg positive usually means a current infection (a recent vaccination can briefly cause it too); total anti-HBc (HBcAb) positive means an infection now or in the past; HBV DNA measures how much virus is in the blood.
Some studies accept a past infection if HBV DNA is undetectable, sometimes with antiviral medicine during the study. Check what this study allows.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Hepatitis C tests
Hepatitis C is a virus that infects the liver. An HCV antibody test can stay positive after an infection has cleared (and is occasionally positive without one); an HCV RNA test shows whether the virus is there now.
After treatment, hepatitis C counts as cured when HCV RNA is still undetectable 12 weeks or more after the treatment ended. Studies often accept people cured this way.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
HIV
The human immunodeficiency virus, which weakens the immune system.
Many studies now accept people whose HIV is controlled on treatment, judged by the viral load and the CD4 count. Check the limits this study sets.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Contraindication
A reason a treatment, test or procedure should not be given to a particular person, such as an allergy, another illness or a medicine they take.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Hypersensitivity
An allergy, or another reaction of the immune system, to a substance. “Hypersensitivity to the study drug” means a known allergic reaction to it — not every side effect a medicine can have.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Allogeneic and autologous transplant
Stem cell (bone marrow) transplants. Allogeneic uses cells from a donor; autologous uses your own cells, collected earlier and given back.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
GVHD (graft-versus-host disease)
After a transplant from a donor, the donor’s immune cells attack the recipient’s body, often the skin, gut or liver.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Investigational drug or device
A drug or device being studied in a clinical trial.
It may be new, or already approved and being studied for another use, dose or form. Criteria often leave out people who took part in another study of one within a recent period, commonly 30 days or five half-lives.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Bispecific anti-CD19, anti-CD20 CAR T cells administration
Drug: Experimental Intervention
The study intervention includes: * Lymphapheresis * Lymphodepleting chemotherapy * CAR-T infusion Lymphocytes will be collected from the patients by lymphapheresis to produce a personalized IMP, bispecific anti-CD19, anti-CD20 CAR T cells, which will be manufactured at the GMP facility of the University Hospital Basel. Patients receive a preparative lymphodepleting chemotherapy of intravenous cyclophosphamide and fludarabine from day -5 until day -3 (or Bendamustine on day -3 and day -2), before anti-CD19/20 CAR T cells are infused (day 0 = day of infusion). Participants will undergo lymphapheresis 2-8 weeks prior to CAR T cell infusion.
Evaluation of Adverse Events
All adverse events will be assessed in a structured manner (time of onset, duration, resolution, action been taken, assessment of intensity, relationship with study treatment), using the CTCAE Version v5.0.
Time frame: up to 3 months after CAR T cell infusion
Evaluation of Adverse Events of special interest (CRS)
All adverse events of special interest (CRS) will be assessed in a structured manner (time of onset, duration, resolution, action been taken, assessment of intensity, relationship with study treatment), using the ASTCT CRS Consensus Grading (Grade 1 up to Grade 4; with Grade 4 as most severe CRS Grade)
Time frame: up to 3 months after CAR T cell infusion
Evaluation of Adverse Events of special interest (ICANS)
All adverse events of special interest (ICANS) will be assessed in a structured manner (time of onset, duration, resolution, action been taken, assessment of intensity, relationship with study treatment), using the Immune-effector Cell-associated Encephalopathy (ICE) test, which was developed to provide objectivity for screening and grading the severity of ICANS. The ICE score is performed at least every 8 hours during in-patient care and at every outpatient visit. A higher score indicates better cognitive function, with a perfect score of 10 signifying no impairment.
Time frame: up to 3 months after CAR T cell infusion
Evaluation of Adverse Events of special interest (ICAHT)
Evaluation of Adverse Events of special interest (ICAHT) will be assessed in a structured manner (time of onset, duration, resolution, action been taken, assessment of intensity, relationship with study treatment), using the EHA/EBMT consensus grading. The EHA/EBMT consensus grading score is a classification system based on depth and duration of neutropenia.
Time frame: up to 3 months after CAR T cell infusion
Objective response rate (ORR): Change in metabolic response in FDG-PET/CT scan
For lymphomas and B-cell ALL with lymphadenopathy metabolic response in FDG-PET/CT scan according to the Lugano Classification (Response assessment: Complete Remission; Partial Remission; Progressive Disease)
Time frame: 1, 3, 6 and 12 months after CAR T cell infusion
Objective response rate (ORR): Change in minimal residual disease (MRD) negativity in blood
For patients with B-cell ALL minimal residual disease (MRD) negativity as determined by flow cytometry
Time frame: 1, 3, 6 and 12 months after CAR T cell infusion
Objective response rate (ORR): Change in minimal residual disease (MRD) negativity in bone marrow
For patients with B-cell ALL minimal residual disease (MRD) negativity as determined by flow cytometry
Time frame: 1, 3, 6 and 12 months after CAR T cell infusion
Objective response rate (ORR): Change in sustained MRD-negative Complete Remission (CR)
For patients with B-cell ALL: Sustained MRD-negative CR determined by polymerase chain reaction of the IgH rearrangement
Time frame: 1, 3, 6 and 12 months after CAR T cell infusion
Progression-free survival
Progression-free survival, defined as the time between infusion of CAR T product to progression or death, whichever occurs first
Time frame: up to 12 months after CAR T cell infusion
Event free survival
Event free survival, defined as time between infusion of CAR T product to not achieving complete remission 3 months after CAR T infusion, progression, or death, whichever occurs first.
Time frame: up to 3 months after CAR T cell infusion
Overall survival
Overall survival, defined as the time between the day of infusion of CAR T product to death of any cause.
Time frame: up to 12 months after CAR T cell infusion
Cumulative incidence of non-relapse mortality
Cumulative incidence of non-relapse mortality, defined as any death not related to underlying lymphoid malignancy.
Time frame: up to 12 months after CAR T cell infusion
Start is estimated for Jun 2026; primary completion for Nov 2028, 29 months later.
Of 32 phase 1 interventional studies under Leukemia, B-Cell, half reached primary completion within 61 months of starting (the median), counting those still running; a quarter within 33 and three quarters within 119. This study's planned 29 months is below that.
How these figures are worked out, and which studies are left out of them.
This study is not yet recruiting, as verified in Dec 2025. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.
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University Hospital, Basel, Switzerland →