(Reuters) -The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday allowed the use of Bristol-Myers Squibb and 2seventybio’s cell therapy Abecma in less severely affected patients with a type of blood cancer.
The decision comes after a panel of expert advisers voted in favor of Abecma’s use as an earlier treatment for multiple myeloma, a common form of cancer that affects older adults.
Abecma is already approved in the U.S. to treat patients with multiple myeloma who have received four or more prior lines of treatment.
The health regulator is also reviewing cancer cell therapy, Carvykti, from Johnson & Johnson and its partner Legend Biotech for use in less severely affected patients.
The FDA is set to make its decision for the same by April 5.
Abecma and Carvykti belong to a class of treatments known as chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies that work by modifying white blood cells known as T-cells to attack cancer.
(Reporting by Sneha S K, Bhanvi Satija and Sriparna Roy in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvilaand Krishna Chandra Eluri)
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