Jerry Hatfield faced grim odds. Doctors told him he might have just over a year left after AL amyloidosis—a rare cancer that fills the body with harmful proteins—damaged his lungs. Standard chemotherapy had already failed to slow the disease.
Everything changed when Hatfield joined a clinical trial at Huntsman Cancer Institute. He received NXC-201, an experimental CAR-T immunotherapy that is not yet FDA approved. The treatment uses a patient’s own immune cells, reworked in the lab to hunt down the cells that make amyloid proteins. For Hatfield, the effect was swift. His abnormal protein levels dropped to normal, and the disease stopped spreading.
In the NEXICART-2 trial, 89% of patients with relapsed or refractory AL amyloidosis achieved a complete response to NXC-201, with 44 out of 45 patients reaching normalization of pathological light chains.
Personalized cell therapy in practice
Dr. Amandeep Godara, Hatfield’s hematologist at Huntsman, called the trial a sign of how cancer care is changing. “We are now entering an era of personalized cancer treatments where patients’ own immune cells are going to be turned into a weapon against their disease,” Godara said. The process starts with collecting a patient’s immune cells. Scientists then modify these cells so they can spot and attack the cancer-driving cells. The modified cells are infused back into the patient.
Hatfield’s outlook improved. Doctors now estimate he could have three to five years—more than triple his original prognosis. Still, the therapy could not undo the lung damage he already had. He continues to struggle with shortness of breath and has not returned to activities like pickleball. Hatfield credits the treatment with stopping further decline. “What it did is it arrested the spread,” Hatfield said. “But they haven’t figured out how to go and get rid of what already existed.”
NXC-201 is an autologous CAR-T therapy targeting BCMA, a protein expressed by malignant plasma cells, and is being studied in the NEXICART-2 program (NCT06097832).
What comes next for NXC-201
NXC-201 is still in the testing phase. Researchers are tracking Hatfield and other trial participants to see how long the response lasts and whether this approach could help more people with AL amyloidosis. According to an October 2026 update from Immix Biopharma, all evaluated patients in the NEXICART-2 study showed a cardiac response, and 92% had a renal response. These organ improvements are promising, but they do not mean the disease is cured.
Immix Biopharma plans to finish more analysis after following up with participants enrolled through March 2026. The company aims to submit a Biologics License Application (BLA) for NXC-201 in 2027. For now, NXC-201 remains investigational and is not approved for general use. Immix also plans a randomized first-line trial in 2027, enrolling about 260 patients to compare NXC-201 with the current standard treatment, which combines daratumumab and CyBorD.
The FDA has granted NXC-201 Breakthrough Therapy Designation, Regenerative Medicine Advanced Therapy status, and orphan drug designation. These labels are meant to speed up development and review, but they do not mean the therapy is approved or proven effective, as explained in the Immix Biopharma corporate update.
For now, Hatfield spends time in his garden, making the most of the extra years the trial has given him. His story shows how experimental cell therapies can give patients with rare cancers more time and hope, even if they do not offer a cure. The clinical evidence is still early, but Hatfield’s rapid drop in protein levels suggests CAR-T treatments could soon change the outlook for people with rare and hard-to-treat cancers—if ongoing trials back up these early results.
