US approves first cancer 'living drug'

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved an ‘historic’ treatment to redesign a patient's own immune system so it attacks cancer.

Drug company Novartis is charging $475,000 (£367,000) for the ‘living drug’ therapy, which is reported to have left 83 per cent of 63 patients free of a type of blood cancer, a move which UK doctors have said is ‘exciting’.

Tailor-made to each patient, CAR-T is made by extracting white blood cells from the patient's blood, which are then genetically reprogrammed to seek out and kill cancer.

Despite its success and the excitement generated by its approval, the drug can cause potentially life-threatening cytokine release syndrome from the rapid proliferation of the CAR-T cells in the body, although US doctors say this can be controlled by drugs.

Dr Scott Gottlieb, from the FDA, said: "We're entering a new frontier in medical innovation with the ability to reprogram a patient's own cells to attack a deadly cancer. New technologies such as gene and cell therapies hold out the potential to transform medicine and create an inflection point in our ability to treat and even cure many intractable illnesses."

Prof Peter Johnson, the chief clinician at the charity Cancer Research UK, said: "The first genetically modified cell therapy to be approved by the FDA is an exciting step forward. We still have a lot to learn about how to use it safely and who might benefit from it, so it is important to recognise this is just a first step."