Cas­cade of costs could push CAR-T ther­a­py to $1.5M per pa­tient

Out­rage over the high cost of can­cer care has fo­cused on sky­rock­et­ing drug prices, in­clud­ing the $475,000 price tag for the coun­try’s first gene ther­a­py, No­var­tis’ Kym­ri­ah, a leukemia treat­ment ap­proved in Au­gust.

But the to­tal costs of Kym­ri­ah and the 21 sim­i­lar drugs in de­vel­op­ment — known as CAR T-cell ther­a­pies — will be far high­er than many have imag­ined, reach­ing $1 mil­lion or more per pa­tient, ac­cord­ing to lead­ing can­cer ex­perts. The next CAR T-cell drug could be ap­proved as soon as No­vem­ber.

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