{"id":368604,"date":"2026-01-14T03:35:04","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T03:35:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/368604\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T03:35:04","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T03:35:04","slug":"first-leukaemia-patient-to-get-pioneering-drug-on-nhs-says-it-is-very-sci-fi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/368604\/","title":{"rendered":"First leukaemia patient to get pioneering drug on NHS says it is ‘very sci-fi’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oscar said he was surprised the treatment could pack such a powerful punch in such a small dose. <\/p>\n

“It’s very sci-fi, but if it means it gets rid of the cancer permanently and my own cells can do it it’s just fantastic.”<\/p>\n

Oscar had a second infusion of 300 million cells yesterday, marking the end of his CAR-T treatment.<\/p>\n

As this is a “living drug”, the cancer-killing T-cells stay in the body for a long time and will continue to grow and work inside the patient after the final infusion.<\/p>\n

The CAR-T therapy is manufactured by Autolus, a spin-out company from University College London.<\/p>\n

During clinical trials, the patient’s cells had to be sent to laboratories in the US.<\/p>\n

The list price of the treatment is \u00a3372,000 per infusion, external<\/a>, but the NHS has a confidential discount.<\/p>\n

It will be available to patients over the age of 26 whose B-cell ALL has not responded to treatment or has returned at several centres in England, including Cambridge, Newcastle, Sheffield, Plymouth and London. <\/p>\n

Patients from Wales and Northern Ireland will need to travel to England for treatment. It has not yet been approved in Scotland.<\/p>\n

NHS England estimates that around 50 patients a year may benefit, but Tholouli told the BBC she believed it could be more, and predicted it would eventually be used as a first-line treatment instead of stem cell transplantation.<\/p>\n

Prof Peter Johnson, NHS National Clinical Director for Cancer, said it was a “landmark moment” for people with aggressive blood cancer.<\/p>\n

He added it was “remarkable” the treatment now delivered at NHS centres had been developed from scientific research within the UK.<\/p>\n

“It will help more people like Oscar live longer and healthier lives.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oscar said he was surprised the treatment could pack such a powerful punch in such a small dose.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368605,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-368604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}