#AS­CO21: No­var­tis gears up for CAR-T fight with Gilead in fol­lic­u­lar lym­phoma — and safe­ty could de­fine the bat­tle

Since win­ning the first CAR-T ap­proval in the US back in 2017, No­var­tis has been hard at work ex­pand­ing the reach of its block­buster can­cer drug Kym­ri­ah. Gilead’s Yescar­ta beat it to the punch in fol­lic­u­lar lym­phoma (FL) back in March — but now, No­var­tis says it has new piv­otal da­ta that could give its old ri­val a run for its mon­ey.

Of 94 pa­tients giv­en Kym­ri­ah for re­lapsed or re­frac­to­ry FL, 86% re­spond­ed, ac­cord­ing to pri­ma­ry re­sults re­leased ahead of AS­CO 2021. A to­tal of 66% saw a com­plete re­sponse — which is just a bit high­er than the 65% No­var­tis tout­ed up­on shar­ing in­ter­im re­sults from the Phase II ELARA tri­al back in De­cem­ber.

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