Faced with cancer, how much money would you give up on treatment?

100,000? 500000? 1000000?

Shandong University Aging Science Team once did a project, found that 10% of cancer patients had to give up some cancers in tears because of lack of money Treatment, up to 52% of cancer patients have financial crisis.

Since June last year, the CAR-T product priced as high as 1.2 million yuan, Akilence injection, has been launched, and many people on the Internet have been calling I can’t afford it. At present, the drug has not been covered by medical insurance, and it is still a purely self-funded anti-cancer drug. However, there are still many people who have paid expensive treatment costs for the drug, more than 100.

The lesions disappeared within 1 or 30 days, and the first case of “1.2 million anticancer drugs” in Anhui was successfully treated

Recently, according to the Xin’an Evening News, Aunt Su (pseudonym) in Bengbu, Anhui Province underwent bilateral ovary and hysterectomy surgery seven years ago because of ovarian mass. The postoperative pathological results showed diffuse hysterectomy. Large B-cell lymphoma. In the few years after the diagnosis, Aunt Su went to many hospitals for treatment, but the results were not satisfactory, and her condition kept recurring.

In February of this year, Aunt Su was hospitalized again for treatment.Aunt Su had obvious swelling and pain in her face when she was admitted to the hospital, and there was a lump on the left side of her face. Significant mass, shortness of breath and inability to lie flat and rest normally. Considering that Auntie Su had performed a number of comprehensive treatments, the results were not satisfactory, and the expert team decided to perform CAR-T cell therapy for Auntie Su.

Only 10 days after the injection, Aunt Su’s facial mass gradually disappeared, and re-examination PET-CT one month later showed complete remission of the disease ( All target lesions disappeared, no new lesions appeared, and tumor markers were normal for at least 4 weeks), Auntie Su’s life gradually returned to normal.

Aunt Su cured her cancer with “one injection” on the premise that she was not healed for many years? What is the best way to cure it?

Second, one needle kills cancer cells, what is the legendary “CAR-T” therapy What is it?

CAR-T therapy is currently the most popular immunotherapy. The cells are modified so that they have the characteristics of recognizing tumor cell surface antigens, and after diffusion culture in vitro, they are returned to the patient’s body to kill cancer cells.

At present, in addition to the 1.2 million yuan Aquilense injection, there are 7 main products on the market, which are:

< p>1. Kymirah: US$475,000

for the treatment of follicular lymphoma, with an overall response rate of 86.2% and a complete response The rate was 69.1%.

2, Carvykti (Xidaji Orensai injection): 2.93 million yuan

For the treatment of multiple myeloma, the overall response rate is 98%, the complete response rate is 78%

3, Abecma: $437,900< /span>

For the treatment of multiple myeloma, the overall response rate is 72%, the complete response rate is 28%

4. Breyanzi: US$410,300

for the treatment of large B-cell lymphoma, with an overall response rate of 73% and a complete response rate of 54% span>

5. Tecartus: $393,000< /p>

For the treatment of relapsed or refractory mantle cell lymphoma, the overall response rate is 93% and the complete response rate is 67%

6. Yescarta: US$373,000

for the treatment of large B-cell lymphoma, with an overall response rate of 83% and a complete response rate of 65%

7. Relma-cel (Ruiji Orenza Injection): 1.29 million RMB

For the treatment of large B-cell lymphoma, the overall response rate was 75.9% and the complete response rate was 51.7 %

Have you found that the above products are basically for the treatment of hematological tumors, not solid tumors? This is the difficulty in the development of CAR-T therapy. Compared with “niche” blood tumors, solid tumors are the bulk of cancer treatment.

3. Further reading: Attacking solid tumors, Chinese experts upgrade “CAR-T” therapy< /h1>

One of the biggest difficulties of CAT-T for solid tumors is the lack of effective targets. The antigens of solid tumors are also expressed in normal tissues, which has a great risk of off-target, which makes CAR-T therapy less effective.Security is difficult to guarantee. Solid tumors account for 90% of all clinical tumors. Currently, there is no CAR-T product targeting solid tumors on the market.

May 9, Shen Lin, Vice President, Peking University Cancer Hospital and collaborators announce the results of a clinical trial showing a novel therapy, CLDN18.2-specific CAR-T cell therapyIt has great potential in gastrointestinal tumors.

The study selected data from 37 cancer patients, including 28 with gastric/esophagogastric junction adenocarcinoma and 5 with pancreatic cancer, all of whom had CLDN18 .2 is highly expressed in the protein.

After the first injection of CAR-T cells into these patients, the observed safety profile was acceptable, patients receiving treatment The overall response rate was 48.6%, and the disease control rate was 73%, which were 57.1% and 75% in gastric cancer patients, respectively.

Although CAR-T therapy is a “life-saving straw” for some cancer patients, many patients are faced with such “sky-high” drugs. In the dilemma that is suitable but cannot be cured, why has the country not included CAR-T products in medical insurance? Let the common people have medicines and can afford medicines at the same time?

Fourth, why can’t such expensive CAR-T products be covered by medical insurance?

The reason why sky-high anti-cancer drugs cannot be covered by medical insurance is very realistic, and it is also too expensive! Zheng Jie, head of the National Medical Insurance DRG Payment Technical Guidance Team responded that anticancer drugs worth up to 1.2 million yuan, The price far exceeds the affordability of the medical insurance fund and the burden of the common people, so it is not economical.

In the final analysis, one word: expensive! Why is CAR-T therapy so expensive?

1. Many raw materials are imported

my country’s CAR-T The degree of product differentiation is not high, and many key equipment, reagents, raw materials, etc. rely on imports, and these costs are very high.

2. Private one-to-one customization

CAR-T therapy is a highly personalized It can only be “customized” one-to-one, and cannot be mass-produced. The production cost is very high. According to the data published by Shanxi Securities Research Report, the total cost of CAR-T products produced by the current production process is $150,000-$300,000range.

The advent of CAR-T products has undoubtedly brought new hope to many patients, but the high cost has also discouraged many patients. It is also hoped that the country can develop products with wider application and more affordable prices as soon as possible to change the plight of cancer patients. #Number One Weekly#

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