Its a small world, page-16

While on the subject of competitor activity, did anyone see the news that Car-T therapy has been approved in Australia.

"It has all happened so quickly. Late September we came here not knowing what to expect, hoping for the best, fearing the worst. Then come November I was in complete remission."

The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) has approved CAR-T therapy - the first of its kind - for use in paediatric and young adult patients with B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) and adult patients with DLBCL who have failed other treatments, including chemotherapy.

CAR-T therapy involves extracting a patient's own beleaguered immune cells and genetically re-engineering them before infusing them back into the body. The single-shot "living drug" has generated enormous excitement in the medical world.

TGA's approval was based on two global clinical trials that showed an incredible 62 per cent relapse-free survival rate at 24 months in paediatric ALL patients and a 43 per cent probability of overall survival at 18 months in adult DLBCL patients.

Pharmaceutical giant Novartis, which owns the therapy, commercially known as Kymriah, is increasing lab capabilities to meet growing demand, with Europe, Canada and Switzerland giving their stamp of approval.

"We are focused on ramping up capacity at our US and Switzerland facilities and we recently announced a collaboration agreement for additional manufacturing capacity with Fraunhofer (Germany) and CellforCure (France)," Lauren Carey from Novartis said.

Health Minister Hunt is reviewing including the therapy on the scheduled list to reduce cost for patients.

Isn’t this what we are currently doing ex-Vivo studies on? And someone else is already curing people?