FDA Approves First CAR-T Cell Therapy

Johann Groder/APA Picturedesk via ZUMA

Progress:

The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved the first-ever treatment that genetically alters a patient’s own cells to fight cancer, a milestone that is expected to transform treatment in the coming years….The therapy, marketed as Kymriah and made by Novartis, was approved for children and young adults for an aggressive type of leukemia — B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia….The treatment was originally developed by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and licensed to Novartis. It was identified in previous reports as CAR-T cell therapy, CTL019 or tisagenlecleucel.

Hooray! Let’s do multiple myeloma next! This therapy costs half a million bucks or so, but as long as someone else is paying for it I figure I’m worth it.