Novartis gets US priority review for Kymriah for adults with lymphoma

ZURICH: Novartis has been ‍granted the priority review for its cell therapy Kymriah for adults with a form of lymphoma by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Swiss drugmaker said on Wednesday, as it seeks to expand the use of the treatment in multiple blood cancers.

Kymriah, already approved for treatment of children and young adults with r/r B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia, will now get speedy scrutiny for use against relapsed or refractory (r/r) diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) in adults, the company said in a statement.

Kymriah belongs to a new class of treatments called CAR-T therapies where disease-fighting T cells are removed from a patient and genetically modified to better recognize and attack cancer. They are then re-infused into the same patient where they can circulate for years to seek out and fight the disease.

(Reporting by John Miller, editing by John Revill)