'Living Drug' That Fights Cancer By Harnessing The Immune System Clears Key Hurdle
An advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration recommends the agency, for the first time, approve a new kind of treatment that uses genetically modified immune cells to attack cancer cells.
A new kind of cancer treatment that uses genetically engineered cells from a patient's immune system to attack their cancer easily cleared a crucial hurdle Wednesday.
A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee unanimously recommended that the agency approve this "living drug" approach for children and young adults who are fighting a common form of leukemia. The agency doesn't have to follow the committee's recommendation but usually does.
The treatment takes cells from a patient's body, modifies the genes, and then reinfuses those has approved anything considered to be a "gene therapy product."
