The United States for the first time allowed the application of gene therapy to treat cancer

On August 30, the United States adopted therapies to correct the Kymriah gene, opening hope for people with cancer.

According to the Washington Post, the decision to adopt Kymriah blood cancer gene correction therapy by Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis was released on August 30 by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This is considered a "historical" act because before Kymriah, no gene modification therapy has been recognized by the United States.

"We have created new limits in medicine with the ability of patients to reprogram cells to fight cancer , " said Scott Gottlieb, FDA committee member. "New techniques such as gene therapy and cells hold the potential to transform medicine, treat critical diseases."

Kymriah therapy brings new hope for cancer patients.(Photo: drugstorenews).

Kymriah therapy (formerly CTL019), also known as "live medicine" for 3-25 year olds with B-cell leukemia, does not respond to traditional treatments. It is estimated that every year in the US there are 600 such cases.

Kymriah is extremely complicated, requiring adjustment for each patient. It does not replace a healthy gene-causing gene that extracts the patient's T-cells and reprograms them so they can identify and kill cancer cells. Finally, T cells are brought back into the patient's body. Tests on 63 volunteers showed that Kymriah's therapeutic effect reached 83%.

At $ 475,000, Kymriah becomes one of the most expensive cancer treatments in the world. The number released by Novartis quickly became a controversial topic because the US government spent millions of dollars in research investments. A group of patients who work for the rights condemns the "expensive money ".

However, Kymriah still received positive reviews from experts. Professor Carl June from the University of Pennsylvania, who led the development of Kymriah, identified therapy as a turning point that gives hope to people with cancer and many other dangerous diseases. Meanwhile, pediatric oncologist Kevin Curran at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center rated Kymriah "extremely interesting" and expected it to overcome an obsolete bone marrow transplant.