Cell Therapy Development: White Paper Urges US FDA To Allow Some Shortcuts

A Friends of Cancer Research working group suggests that the US FDA can learn lessons from the approval of Gilead/Kite’s second CAR-T therapy Tecartus that can help expedited iterative development of cell therapies more broadly.

shortcut
• Source: Shutterstock

A Friends of Cancer Research white paper argues that the use of pre-clinical, dosing and manufacturing data from Gilead Sciences, Inc./Kite Pharma’s Yescarta CAR-T therapy to support approval of the follow-on Tecartus provides a model for the US FDA to use in streamlining iterative product development of cellular therapies.

“Yescarta and Tecartus provide an example of extrapolation in engineered cellular therapy products,” the white paper says. Yescarta (axicabtagene ciloleucel) was one of the first CAR-T anticancer therapies approved by FDA in 2017

More from Product Reviews

More from Pink Sheet

US FDA Guidance Roadblock: Writing Continues, But Publication Has Slowed Or Stopped

 

Cuts to the FDA’s policy and legal personnel have prevented dozens of product-specific guidances for generic drug development from being published.

FDA Adcomms Are Back: Four Cancer Drugs, COVID-19 Vaccine Formulations To Get Reviews

 

The Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee will meet for two days in mid-May, followed by a Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee’s review of the 2025-2026 COVID-19 vaccine formulation.

Brazil To Upgrade Pricing Framework To Keep Up With Market Developments

 

Brazil plans to clarify its medicine pricing framework, for example by outlining the procedures for setting medicine prices and bring it up to date with recent developments in the sector.