Cancer Cure Updates: FDA Approves Use of New Type of Drug for Treatment of Killer Disease
The U.S. regulators have recently approved a new type of cancer treatment that is expected to revolutionize the approach to deal with one of the world's leading killer disease.
Earlier this week, U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has greenlighted the use of Kymriah, Novartis' first drug for a new way to treat cancer, the CAR-T cell therapy. Michael Bailey, director of research and investment committee chair at FBB Capital Partners, describes FDA's approval of Kymriah as one step forward in the launch of a new drug class.
CAR-T cell therapy is a type of cancer immunotherapy that uses the body's own immune system to attack the cancer cells. This process involves the extraction of a cancer patient's cells that are eventually re-engineered before they are returned to a person's body to do the job.
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While Kymriah is a promising treatment, it comes with a high price tag. According to Novartis, the one-time treatment will cost $475,000, which for some industry experts, is cheaper than originally expected. Furthermore, based on FDA's approval, it will only be administered to around 600 people a year.
Nonetheless, the approval still got the medical industry jubilating.
"This approval will open the floodgates for these kinds of therapy to be used in many different leukemias, lymphomas, solid tumors, myelomas. I think this is just the beginning of a new era of gene therapy," Dr. Prakash Satwani, a pediatric hematologist-oncologist at Columbia University Medical Center, told Business Insider.
Apart from the high price, another disadvantage of Kymriah is its side-effects. It has been learned that half of those who were tested for the drug experienced the cytokine-release syndrome, which is the body's response to the reprogrammed cells running loose in a patient's body.
While the symptoms of the said side-effect are sort of flu-like, such as high fevers, they can get life-threatening that may send patients into the intensive care units and engender additional costs.
