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Aaron Edwards: Will in Vivo CAR-T Make Everything Else Obsolete?

Aaron Edwards/LinkedIn

Aug 28, 2025, 18:39

Aaron Edwards: Will in Vivo CAR-T Make Everything Else Obsolete?

Aaron Edwards, Co-Founder/CEO at KiraGen Bio, shared a post on LinkedIn:

“Will in vivo CAR-T make everything else obsolete? That’s the $350M question everyone’s asking after Kite’s Interius acquisition.

The Reality Check
Yes, in vivo delivery will find important niches—especially in first-in-human programs. But expecting it to replace every other modality is oversimplified.

More modalities = more options = better outcomes for patients.

Context Is Everything
The real question isn’t “which will win?” but “which is the right fit for the problem?”
Three questions should guide the choice:
• Who is the patient population?
• What barriers dominate—delivery, persistence, or microenvironmental suppression?
• Which modality is best equipped to solve them?

Case in Point: GBM
For glioblastoma, KiraGen Bio sees allo CAR-T as the better fit today. Direct CNS delivery bypasses the blood–brain barrier, and ex vivo engineering enables resistance to the tumor microenvironment—the central factor behind CAR-T failures in GBM. By contrast, in vivo approaches face a double challenge: locating and reprogramming scarce intratumoral T cells, while also overcoming the same suppressive forces.

The Expert Perspective
Carl June, the father of CAR-T, captured this nuance well:
• On auto vs. allo, he emphasized it’s about use cases: “We will need both approaches for the foreseeable future, and they will have independent uses.”
• On solid tumors, he pointed to why ex vivo multiplex editing is indispensable: “I think that is going to be necessary in some solid tumors. And I don’t see that happening in my lifetime with in vivo engineering.”

The Bottom Line
The future of cell therapy won’t be defined by one “winner.” It will be defined by precision—deploying the right modality in the right context, so more patients benefit, sooner.

What’s your view—are we seeing healthy diversification or risky fragmentation?

Links:

Gilead’s Kite sails into in vivo CAR-T space with $350M Interius buyout.

Father Of CAR T-Cell Therapy Sees 2024 As A Breakthrough Year For Brain Cancer Treatment.”

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