![]() ![]() ![]() Twitter: p.m.: This article was updated with information about Kite Pharma founder Dr. The Associated Press was used in compiling this report. “I’m not sure that Gilead is particularly susceptible to that.” There’s a lot of controversy around that,” he said. “There are a lot of oncology drugs right now that are expensive. Novartis’ treatment very likely will hit the market first so Gilead will have that price to work from, said Alan Carr, an analyst at Needham & Co. The CAR T treatment could be expensive as well because of the complexities of the therapy. Also, AIDS activists have complained about the prices of Gilead’s HIV medications. The drugs were developed by biotech firm Pharmasset Inc., which Gilead acquired in 2011.Ī bipartisan Senate Finance Committee report in 2015 said that Gilead put profits before patients in pricing the drug. Gilead was criticized two years ago for high prices for its hepatitis C drugs, including one that began at $1,000 per pill. “With Gilead’s expertise and support, we hope to fulfill that potential by rapidly accelerating our robust pipeline and next-generation research and manufacturing technologies.” “CAR T has the potential to become one of the most powerful anti-cancer agents for hematologic cancers,” Belldegrun said in a statement Monday. And 82% of patients had their cancer shrink at least by half at some point after the treatment, the study found. In February, Kite Pharma reported that a major study of the gene therapy process found that more than a third of very sick lymphoma patients showed no signs of the disease six months after a single treatment. “The GPS will lead you to the cancer cell, and not the normal cell, and selectively kill only the cancer cell,” Belldegrun said. In a 2015 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Belldegrun likened the cancer-fighting treatment to the navigation system in an automobile. The process involves drawing blood from a patient, refrigerating it and flying it to Kite’s facilities, where the cells are modified, frozen and then flown back to doctors who reinject them into patients. Its cancer treatment, called CAR T, involves reprogramming a patient’s disease-fighting T-cells to seek and destroy only abnormal, cancerous lymph cells. Kite Pharma was founded in 2009 by Belldegrun, an Israeli-born cancer doctor with decades of experience in immunotherapy. “If one even thought about transferring it out of El Segundo, I think it would be next to impossible because you’d have to have that site up and running for product launch later this year,” Amin said. “It’s important that they keep that together,” he said.īiren Amin, an equity analyst at Jefferies, said Gilead was unlikely to make a change to Kite Pharma’s operations with FDA approval of its treatment “right around the corner.” “That manufacturing in L.A., that marketing team, I think is really, really critical in the process, especially when they’re about to launch in this area,” said Tony Butler, an analyst at Guggenheim Securities. “This is a growth area, and we anticipate we will increase the number of employees at Kite.”Īnalysts said it made sense for Gilead to keep and even expand Kite Pharma’s Los Angeles-area operations. “The transaction is not about financial synergies or cost savings,” she said. Gilead was impressed with Kite Pharma’s team and plans to keep investing in its operations, said Gilead spokeswoman Amy Flood. Kite Pharma has about 600 employees at the two facilities combined, company spokeswoman Christine Cassiano said. Manufacturing of Kite Pharma’s treatment is to continue at the facility in El Segundo. Kite Pharma’s research and development, as well as commercialization operations, are to remain in Santa Monica. Gilead has developed top-selling treatments for HIV and the liver-destroying hepatitis C virus, but leaders of the biotechnology company told analysts Monday that its push into oncology has been largely nascent so far. The boards of both companies have approved the deal, and it’s expected to close by the end of the year. The shares got a significant boost after a study of the company’s gene therapy reported positive results. Since the start of the year, Kite Pharma’s stock price has nearly quadrupled. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |