The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has recommended Gilead's Yescarta for the treatment of lymphoma in patients in England.
Manufactured by Gilead subsidiary Kite Pharma, Yescarta is now the first CAR T-cell therapy recommended for routine use on the National Health Service (NHS), and will be available as a third in line option for all adult patients with relapsed or refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) and primary mediastinal large B-cell lymphoma (PMBCL).
While England was the first country to provide access to the CAR T-cell therapy, it had been enabled via the Cancer Drugs Fund. NICE first rejected Yescarta back in 2018, deeming it too expensive.
Yescarta was approved by the U.S. FDA in 2017 to treat adult patients with certain types of large B-cell lymphoma who have not responded to or who have relapsed after at least two other kinds of treatment.
