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A group of 97 patients had longstanding multiple myeloma, a blood cancer considered incurable, and faced a painful death within a year. For a third, the immunotherapy developed by Legend Biotech, a company founded in China, seems to have made their cancer disappear. And after five years, it still has not returned in those patients. The Legend immunotherapy is delivered as an infusion of the patient’s own white blood cells that have been removed and engineered to attack the cancer. Collaborating with Legend, Johnson & Johnson began testing the treatment in patients whose myeloma had overcome at least one standard treatment. While Carvykti’s list price is $555,310, it is a one-time treatment and the hope is that perhaps by giving it earlier, it could cure patients early on. Johnson & Johnson is now testing that idea.
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