Posted on 10/19/2017 7:41:42 AM PDT by RoosterRedux
American regulators granted approval on Wednesday to a gene-altering treatment for patients suffering from lymphoma, the second-ever approval for a gene therapy procedure and one that could revolutionize how we fight cancer.
The drug, named Yescarta, was developed by Israeli-founded Kite Pharma and it is expected to cost some $373,000, likely generating hundreds of millions of dollars in sales. Kite was purchased by Gilead Sciences in August to the tune of $11.9 billion, and today’s breakthrough may have helped with the sale.
The price of Yescarta is set below that of comparable treatments, according to Reuters, as Novartis AG’s gene therapy costs $475,000. The Novartis gene therapy, given the regulatory nod in August, is administered to attack child leukaemia. The high price of the drugs, called CAR-Ts, may set off a debate about the bioethical implications of making life-saving pharmaceuticals unaffordable.
What distinguishes the Israeli-owned drug from other pharmaceuticals is that each dose offers a personalized treatment, made directly from the patient’s own immune system to fight the lymphoma. Called immunotherapy, the patient’s infection-fighting T-cells are extracted and genetically engineered with a new gene to pinpoint and kill the lymphoma cells. After the cells are modified, they are infused back into the patient, where they patrol for years.
“Today marks another milestone in the development of a whole new scientific paradigm for the treatment of serious diseases. In just several decades, gene therapy has gone from being a promising concept to a practical solution to deadly and largely untreatable forms of cancer,” said Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb in a statement.
(Excerpt) Read more at jpost.com ...
Just saw Dr Marc Siegel on Fox Business News state that this treatment is seeing a 50% success rate.
Just imagine what health insurance premiums will have to be to cover that.
"Debate"?
Only among the ignorami. The rest of us know that "expensive" is better than "nonexistent", that prices come down in time, and that research costs lots of money.
The price curve for innovation has early users paying the most, with later users paying less as the underlying science advances, the production technology becomes widespread and mature, and competition takes hold. In flat screen TVs, for example, this process is well underway, while it is only beginning for anti-cancer immune therapies.
Already though, Yescarta is priced so as to gain market share against the current more expensive primary immunotherapy drug. Even better therapies are in the pipeline though, with Yescarta itself soon to face competition and price pressure. Ten or twenty years from now, as better drugs take hold, Yescarta is likely to be reserved for a limited set of cases and to generate but limited cash for its owner.
Note to all Moslems and Anti-Semites around the world: DON’T use this drug, it comes from the JOOOOOOOS.
I have a friend who had a recurrence of lymphoma a year ago. He had tumors in his throat that were affecting his swallowing and speech. He was also told the normal treatment for a second round would kill him, as he is 80.
He was part of a trial .... and was told he might not be able to finish as approval was pending. He finished the trial and is now in remission. The tumors are completely gone and he had very little side effects. I don’t know if this is the same medication or not. All I know is he is still alive, cancer free and blessed.
Bookmark.
My Father was 82 when he was diagnosed with Lymphoma.
He went through ONE regimen of Chemo and that was all it took. It was incredible how it was reversed, especially at his age.
He died eleven years later at age 93 after suffering a Heart Attack when recovering from emergency Abdominal Surgery.
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