As China’s fifth approved CAR-T cell therapy, CARSgen/Huadong’s zevorcabtagene autoleucel is priced at $159,735 for a single infusion. Expanding patient access will become a formidable task for the companies, due to the poor prospects of reimbursement coverage by China’s public medical insurance program. 

Plus deals involving Biocytogen/Radiance, Maruho/AOBiome, LGChem/Rhythm, IASO/Umoja, JW Therapeutics/2seventy and 13 other transactions.

Umoja’s technology is meant to enable development of CAR-Ts that could potentially overcome the challenges associated with autologous cell therapies, especially related to manufacturing.

Novartis pioneered CAR-Ts for leukemia and lymphoma, and inspired by pioneering physician Georg Schett, it also hopes to be first in the race to revolutionize autoimmune disease treatment with the therapies, and has unveiled the first clinical data for its candidate.