The Atlantic

The FDA Approves a Landmark Cancer Drug

CAR T-cell therapy turns the body’s own immune systems against cancer with genetic engineering.
Source: Rita Elena Serda / National Cancer Institute / Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center at Baylor College of Medicine

The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved a new therapy to treat leukemia in kids and young adults—a decision whose importance is as much symbolic as it is practical.

Kymriah, from the Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis, is a cancer therapy that represents several things at once: a game-changing way to treat cancer through genetic engineering, a novel paradigm for the biotech business, and the latest turn in the debate over just how astronomically expensive a life-saving therapy can be.

Kymriah is strikingly

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