L.A. area's Kite Pharma could score big with new cancer treatment

[proverbialwisdom]

Source: BY STUART PFEIFER, LA Times

October 17, 2015, 2:00 p.m.

Kite Pharma, one of the hottest biotech start-ups on Wall Street, hopes to revolutionize the treatment of a common, deadly lymphatic cancer — with a novel mix of highly trained lab techs and high-speed air travel.

The Santa Monica company's treatment of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma reprograms a patient's T-cells — the kind that are supposed to fight disease — to seek and destroy only abnormal, cancerous lymph cells, not the healthy ones crucial for human life.

But in order to do so, blood must be drawn from a patient, refrigerated and flown to Kite's headquarters, where the cells are modified, frozen and then flown back to doctors who re-inject them into patients.

Dr. Arie Belldegrun, Kite's founder and chief executive, likens the two-week process to installing a navigation system in a car.

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"We have seen tumors that originally failed every possible known treatment disappearing within weeks from the infusion," Belldegrun said. "Tumors were melting away."


Read more: http://touch.latimes.com/#section/1780/article/p2p-84735224/

[7962]

1. That is really cool news. SO much new stuff going on now nt

[packman]

2. God, we can only hope

[Little Tich]

3. Wow! n/t

[appalachiablue]

4. This new cancer treatment sounds amazing.

[FormerRepublicanNow]

5. But how much will it cost? Only for the 1%?

[Galileo126]

6. Yeah - the movie "Elysium" comes to mind. - n/t

[appalachiablue]

7. The tragedy & reality of it is who will be able to afford it as in 'Elysium' the dystopian film

with Matt Damon and Jody Foster that came out a year or so ago. Pretty grim.

[Califonz]

8. Sounds like Dendreon's FDA-approved treatment for prostate cancer

But they went bankrupt because the course treatment cost almost $100,000 and other companies developed vastly cheaper alternative drugs.

[hill2016]

9. no

it's the car t treatment. they take t cells from the patient and genetically engineer them to develop car receptors that recognize antigens from the tumors. they then reinsert the t cells into the blood in order to hunt and kill these cancer cells.

so far it's only proven to work on liquid tumors. and yes it's very expensive since it's personalized medicine. it's very experimental and a last line of treatment.

[IHateTheGOP]

10. Science man, science. The candle in the dark.