Kite first to submit CAR-T therapy in Europe

Kite Pharma has submitted the first CAR-T cell therapy in Europe, seeking permission to market its axicabtagene ciloleucel (axi-cel) to treat patients with three subtypes of aggressive non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). CAR-T offers a new treatment approach in that it is specifically manufactured for each individual patient. During the process, T cells are drawn from a patient's blood and reprogrammed in the laboratory to create T cells that are genetically coded to hunt the patient's cancer cells and other B-cells expressing a particular antigen. Axi-cel has been developed for relapsed/refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, transformed follicular lymphoma and primary mediastinal B-cell lymphoma in patient’s ineligible for autologous stem cell transplant.