FDA Approves New Lymphoma Treatment
Source:http://www.floridatrend.com/
From:Taiwan Trade Center,Miami
Update Time:2018/04/09
During the fall of 2017, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Yescarta, a new type of cancer treatment. Yescarta is for patients with lymphoma, and it trains a patient’s immune system to seek and destroy the lymphoma tumors.
According to Florida Trends, Yescarta is a gene therapy where “patient’s T-cells are removed from the blood, sent to a lab in California and then re-engineered with a Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR). After being infused back into the patient, the T-cells — now CAR-Ts — are able to attach themselves to an antigen in the lymphoma and destroy the cancer.” The FDA approved Yescarta after a national two-year clinical trial, co-led by Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa Florida.
Dr. Frederick Locke, a researcher at Moffitt, stated that “about half of the patients were tumor-free six months later, and 41% remained in remission at the 15-month mark. They were without other options, without hope and the results are pretty remarkable.” Yescarta which was created by Kite Pharma, a subsidiary of Gilead Science has a cost of nearly $373,000 for the one-time treatment. Yescarta also carries severe potential side effects like "life-threatening fevers, high blood pressure and neurologic problems, such as memory loss, seizures, and confusion.” Although, the list of potential side effect is long, Locke says that he and his team are working together to reduce the side effects and understand why all patients aren’t benefiting from the treatment.
However, Moffitt Cancer Center has already begun the commercial use of Yescarta to treat patients with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Some insurers are even covering the expensive treatment. Florida Trends also claims that the FDA has approved another CAR-T cell therapy called Kymariah. Novartis Pharmaceuticals promote this new treatment, and it targets acute lymphoblastic leukemia in children and young adults. Both Yescarta and Kymariah are the first CAR-T cell therapies to receive FDA approval.