News

Next week, a CMS committee will hold a day-long meeting to discuss a national coverage determination (NCD) for chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell immunotherapies, and in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine, Peter B. Bach, MD, MAPP, reviewed several strategies open to CMS as it continues to try to determine how to pay for CAR T.

The FDA will start to review gene therapy experiments and products the same as other treatments and drugs; Alaska and Minnesota have become models for other states looking to curb health insurance premium increases with reinsurance programs; patients with limited English proficiency often have to rely on family members and friends to interpret for them, which can have serious consequences.

Celyad, a biopharmaceutical company that focuses on the development of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies, recently announced that the FDA has accepted its Investigational New Drug (IND) application for CYAD-101, the first non–gene-edited allogeneic clinical program.

Tumor-treating field therapy, which uses low-intensity electrical fields to disrupt cancer cell division and promote cell death, has gained a frontline approval in glioblastoma. Several pivotal clinical trials have been launched to determine whether the technology can help patients with other solid tumors.

CAR T-Cell therapy updates presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology's Annual Meeting held June 2018.

Chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapies have quickly moved from early phase clinical trials to FDA approval for diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, with research now exploring ways to shift these agents earlier in the treatment paradigm.