BREAKING NEWS
On May 1, 2018, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) expanded approval for a personalized cellular therapy developed at the Abramson Cancer Center, this time for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory large B-Cell lymphoma (DLBCL) after two or more lines of systemic therapy. The approval was granted to Novartis for the chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy Kymriah® (tisagenlecleucel, formerly CTL019), making it the second indication for the nation’s first personalized cellular therapy for cancer.
“We’re proud to have developed this therapy through all phases of development and clinical trials right here at Penn and in collaboration with Novartis,” said Carl June, MD, director of the Center for Cellular Immunotherapies in the Abramson Cancer Center.
DLBCL affects approximately 30 percent of patients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and there are an estimated 27,000 newly diagnosed cases of DLBCL in the US each year. About 6,500 of those patients have relapsed or refractory disease after two or more therapies and may now be eligible for Kymriah®.
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