This pretty girl was named Emily Whitehead. In May of this year, she celebrated her 9th anniversary of cancer-free survival. As in the past eight years, she posted photos on social media platforms, stood in the sun, held up signs, and announced that she had spent another year safely.
Emily is perhaps the most famous cancer survivor in recent years, and even former U.S. President Barack Obama has hosted her exclusively. It all has to do with her overcoming a terrible disease and, more importantly, she should be the first patient to receive CAR-T cell immunotherapy, and as you can see, her treatment was a huge success.
CAR-T treatment is a new type of cancer treatment that is completely different from traditional treatment. Since 2012, CAR-T cell immunotherapy has been like a dark horse, breaking into people's vision. Over the years, we have continued to pay attention to the clinical data of various CAR-T treatments, and have been carrying out relevant scientific reports. In August 2017, the first CAR-T immunotherapy was launched in the United States. It's been four years now.
On June 22, the latest announcement from China's State Food and Drug Administration (NMPA) showed that Fosun Kate's CAR-T cell therapy product Yiqililunsai Injection (also known as Akirensai, code: FKC876) has been officially approved. This means that China has ushered in the first approved CAR-T cell therapy product. The news immediately swept the screens of cancer treatment circles. After all, the launch of CAR-T treatment can be said to completely complement the last piece of the puzzle in China's anti-cancer field, making our cancer treatment level at the forefront of the world. As soon as Fosun Kate's CAR-T cell therapy product was launched, we were pleasantly surprised. Another debate about it also began to spread rapidly, making headlines!
According to online reports on the sales order of Fosun Kate CAR-T treatment drug Akyrensa injection Zhang Medicine, the retail price of the product is 1.2 million yuan / bag (about 68ml). In this regard, Fosun Kate said that the pricing of CAR-T products will take into account various factors such as value, efficacy and cost. The pricing plan has not yet been finalized, and multi-party communication is underway. Although Fosun Kate temporarily denied the rumor of 1.2 million / bag of "sky-high anti-cancer drugs", the problem of CAR-T treatment costs still deeply stimulates people's nerves. This is probably the most expensive anti-cancer drug on the Chinese market right now.
Is the 1.2 million yuan bag of "sky-high anti-cancer drugs" advertised online really worth it? In fact, we are not the only ones when it comes to the expensive cost of CAR-T treatment. As early as 2017, after the world's first CAR-T treatment was launched in the United States, the discussion about the cost of CAR-T treatment did not stop. Recently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Novartis' Kymriah, Gilead's Yescarta and Tecartus, Bristol-Myers Squibb's Breyanzi and Abcma 5 CART-T therapies. The prices of these products range from $373,000 to $475,000. (Equivalent to RMB2.408 - RMB3.066 million).
Why is CAR-T therapy so expensive? This starts with its therapeutic principle – personalization:
CAR-T, the full name is chimeric antigen receptor t cell immunotherapy, chimeric antigen receptor t cell immunotherapy. It's a novel cell therapy that has been around for years, but it's only been improved and used in the clinic in recent years. Similar to other immunotherapies, its rationale is to use a patient's own immune cells to clear cancer cells, but the difference is that this is a cell therapy, not a drug.
The steps of CAR-T treatment are as follows:
Step 1: Isolation of immune T cells from cancer patients;
Step 2: Genetic engineering techniques are used to add a chimeric antibody that activates T cells to kill tumor cells while recognizing them. This ordinary T cell will become a "special force" and carry it with you. A powerful soldier carrying GPS navigation, ready to spot cancer cells and launch attacks;
Step Three: After these "special forces" are created, pharmaceutical companies need to grow them in vitro to massively expand CAR-T cells. The average patient needs billions or even tens of billions of CAR-T cells;
Step 4: Inject the enlarged CAR-T cells back into the patient.
Of course, for complex CAR-T treatment, this is only a very simple statement, and very complex clinical procedures are also required during the specific surgical procedure. All these steps show their unique characteristics: the need for customization. Even for the same goal, quality control inspection items and standards may differ and cannot be replicated due to different genetic designs and technologies. The inability to improve productivity means that CAR-T treatments are inherently expensive label properties.
So, what is the effect of these expensive anti-cancer drugs?
In terms of efficacy, the previous YESCARTA registry study showed that 101 adult patients with relapsed/refractory large B-cell lymphoma were followed up for 1 year, with the optimal overall response rate of 82% and the complete response rate of 54%; Results of 2-year follow-up: The median follow-up time was 27.1 months, with 39% of the subjects in sustained remission and 37% of the subjects in sustained complete remission.
Such a high price is unaffordable for the vast majority of Chinese people, even if it is a "life-saving medicine". Of course, we don't want to use it either!