Posted by Michael Wonder on 06 Dec 2018
Hospital docs weigh in on CAR-T reimbursement: 'It's very complicated'
5 December 2018 - The field of CAR-T therapy took major steps forward this week at the American Society of Hematology's annual conference — but one big question still looms.
Near the sunny shores of the San Diego Convention Center, a new wave of the cellular therapies showed positive impacts on hard-to-treat cancers like multiple myeloma. Fresh data on two already marketed CAR-T products, Novartis' Kymriah and Gilead Sciences' Yescarta, proved responses to therapy could be fairly long-lasting.
Hovering over those clinical victories, however, was a problem: How exactly will health systems pay for these powerful yet ultra-expensive therapies? The list price on Kymriah, for instance, sits at $373,000 for its diffuse large B cell lymphoma indication and $475,000 for its acute lymphoblastic leukaemia indication.
Like many issues in cancer, the answer to that question is complicated and, to a large extent, not fully realised.
