- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmit.online
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmit.online
Cancer therapy approved by FDA uses body’s own cells as a ‘living drug’::undefined
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Iovance Biotherapeutics has priced the therapy, branded Amtagvi, at $515,000 per patient.
Well thank goodness these kind souls made it so affordable. And im sure it will come down in price after its really proven to be effective right?
I’m sure the RnD for this was expensive af but ffs man, even with insurance thats probably going to be out of reach for so many people.
Charging people for their own cells, too!
Pretty close to Michael Crichton’s book “Next”. Without the persons consent, they steal the cell line of someone who’s cells naturally fight off cancer, create a cancer fighting drug, and then patent it, so the company legally owns that persons cells, and has a legal right to them with or without the person’s consent.
Henrietta Lacks has entered the chat . . .
Huh, TIL.
Cool technology but “living drug” is the dumbest possible analogy here.
But an excellent band name. Imagine “chemo for the soul” by Living Drugs, feat. 4skin
To be fair, that is a direct quote taken from one of the researchers:
“The concept that the FDA has now acknowledged is that you can use a patient’s own cells as a living drug to treat their disease, and that to me is a very exciting step forward,” said Steve Rosenberg, a senior investigator for the National Cancer Institute who has helped pioneer the newly approved therapy since the 1980s.
Something, something, technology indistinguishable from magic, something, education funding, something, something.
Non paywall linky:
This sounds a lot like CAR-T therapy, but for solid tumors? Cool
In CAR-T they are actually altering your cells but this therapy sounds like they are just relying on finding the right immune cell and amplifying it. Similar approaches to the same outcome.
