FDA approves Revolutionary Cancer Drug - Geek.com
The Food and Drug Administration — the American agency in charge of ensuring the safety of most of the things we ingest — has approved a radical new therapy for fighting cancer called Yescarta. It is a type of CAR T-cell therapy, a technique that genetically modifies the subject’s immune cells so that they can attack cancer (specifically, in this case, non-Hodgkin lymphoma) directly. This is only the second time it’s approved such a treatment. The first, back in August, was for leukemia that was non-responsive to more traditional drugs. “Today marks another milestone in the development of a whole new scientific paradigm for the treatment of serious diseases,” FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in a statement. “In just several decades, gene therapy has gone from being a promising concept to a practical solution to deadly and largely untreatable forms of cancer.” Indeed, these new treatments could be boons for cancers that are traditionally stubborn or nearly impossible to treat.