BRIEF—ICER draft evidence report on CAR-T therapy for B-cell cancers

The USA’s Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) yesterday released a Draft Evidence Report assessing the comparative clinical effectiveness and value of tisagenlecleucel (Kymriah, from Novartis) and axicabtagene ciloleucel (Yescarta, from Kite Pharma/Gilead Sciences).

The draft report, along with draft voting questions, will be open to public comment for four weeks, ie, until January 24.

Findings contained in this report are preliminary and subject to change based on public comment and further analysis of the evidence.

Both drugs are chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapies and were approved earlier this year as potentially curative treatments for certain cancers.

Tisagenlecleucel was approved for patients under age 25 with B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia, and is also part of an ongoing study of adults with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.

Axicabtagene ciloleucel is indicated for adults with relapsed or refractory large B-cell non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.