Kite Pharma Cancer Treatment Drug Approved

 October 19, 2017 | A cancer treatment drug developed by Israeli-based biotech company Kite Pharma has been approved by The U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The company’s Yescarta drug is approved for treatment of certain kinds of blood cancer called non-Hodgkin lymphoma. It uses a technology to take out T-cells (white blood cells that fight infection), engineers them to fight the cancer, and then returns them to the cancer patient, to produce a specific form of treatment. The drug will sell at $373,000 for each treatment. This news comes after American pharma giant Gilead Sciences Inc. announced the acquisition of Kite Pharma for $11.9 billion at the end of August. Kite Pharma was founded by Arie Belldegrun and Joshua A. Kazam in 2009. [Photo: mTOR-FKBP12-RAPAMYCIN]