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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a gene therapy for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (blood cancer):
The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved the second in a radically new class of treatments that genetically reboot a patient's own immune cells to kill cancer.
The new therapy, Yescarta, made by Kite Pharma, was approved for adults with aggressive forms of a blood cancer, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, who have undergone two regimens of chemotherapy that failed.
The treatment, considered a form of gene therapy, transforms the patient's cells into what researchers call a "living drug" that attacks cancer cells. It is part of the rapidly growing field of immunotherapy, which uses drugs or genetic tinkering to turbocharge the immune system to fight disease. In some cases the treatments have led to long remissions.
"The results are pretty remarkable," said Dr. Frederick L. Locke, a specialist in blood cancers at the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, and a leader of a study of the new treatment. "We're excited. We think there are many patients who may need this therapy."
He added, "These patients don't have other options."
About 3,500 people a year in the United States may be candidates for Yescarta. It is meant to be given once, infused into a vein, and must be manufactured individually for each patient. The cost will be $373,000.
Also at The Associated Press, CNN, and STAT News.
Previously: FDA Approves a Gene Therapy for the First Time
FDA Committee Endorses Gene Therapy for a Form of Childhood Blindness
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday October 21 2017, @02:51PM
This is stupid. Payouts for unexpected and very expensive things are the whole reason we have "insurance". WTF is the point of having insurance if it's just going to pay for stuff you can pay for on your own?
You probably have a $1M policy for your auto insurance: if you cause a wreck, it'll pay out up to $1M in damages, medical payments, etc. for the other parties. There's no way a lot of drivers would ever be able to pay that back. Are you saying that car insurance policies like that shouldn't exist? That's stupid. This is the whole reason insurance was invented; most people never cause accidents with $1M in damages, so it doesn't matter if you'll never pay that back personally; the insured pool covers that risk collectively. But the big difference is that auto insurance doesn't cover your regular maintenance: oil changes, etc., nor does it cover non-accident repairs (your timing belt broke and now you need to replace your cylinder head). For some odd reason, health insurance is expected to cover this stuff to a certain extent, albeit with "copays" or "coinsurance", but the the idea here is that the insurance company can supposedly negotiate better rates than you can, though this frequently isn't really true, as you'll find if you ask a doctor's office for their "cash price"--all that insurance paperwork is a PITA and costs a lot in staff salaries.