Too Sick For CAR-T? Kite Reports Cerebral Edema Death

Kite Pharma investors were spooked on May 8 when the company revealed that an extremely ill patient died from cerebral edema related to its lead CAR-T candidate – the same severe side effect that derailed Juno's competing cell therapy.

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With its first patient death from cerebral edema, Kite Pharma Inc. has a difficult dilemma: It's developing complicated cell therapies for cancer patients with no further treatment options, but with severe initial side effects for its chimeric antigen T-cell (CAR-T) therapies, are some patients too sick to treat?

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