‘Game changing’ cancer immunotherapy treatment to be offered to UK child patients
US$1 million CAR-T therapy that engineers patient’s immune system T-cells to fight cancer is seen as the future of treatment for the disease. UK NHS patients will be among the first to have it
The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) is to treat children and young people with an expensive new cancer drug which may transform how the disease is treated.
NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens announced a deal with drug company Novartis, which makes the immunotherapy drug under the name Kymriah.
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The list price of the drug is £282,000 (US$364,400) per patient and the therapy treatment costs for the NHS could double that. In the United States, the total cost of the therapy can reach US$1 million.
Stevens and others have said this form of cancer treatment, known as CAR-T therapy, is the future. It works by genetically engineering the patient’s own immune system’s killer T-cells to recognise and destroy cancer cells.
CAR-T therapy is seen as a “game changer” and NHS cancer patients will be among the first in the world to benefit. However, only 15 to 20 children with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) are expected to be eligible for the drug. Only those who have failed a series of earlier treatments, including stem cell transplants, will get it.