Costs and savings for CAR T-cell therapy

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy is a form of immunotherapy — which means it works on your immune system — used to treat certain cancers, particularly blood cancers. It’s a highly personalized treatment that involves taking the patient’s own T-cells and altering them in a laboratory so that they’ll fight cancer cells.

Research into CAR T-cell therapies and their applications in other types of cancer is ongoing. However, the therapy may be more expensive than other treatment options. There are many reasons why this is the case.

CAR T-cell therapy is a very personalized treatment. It involves collecting the patient’s blood and then doctors taking T-cells from it. These are cells in your immune system that bind to foreign cells.

The doctors then genetically modify them to produce a special receptor on them, so when they are infused back into the patient, these modified T cells can now recognize proteins on the cancer cells and either destroy them or signal to your immune system to destroy them.

T-cells only bind to one type of protein, so if you have cancer, you need a certain type of T-cells that have specific receptors for these cancer cells. When doctors take T-cells from your blood, they can alter them to have these receptors. They then infuse these T-cells back into your bloodstream.

CAR T-cell therapies are considered very effective, particularly for patients whose previous treatments haven’t worked. However, this personalized approach is one reason why the treatment can be expensive.

The treatment is unique to each patient’s own cells, so it can’t be mass-produced, which can drive up costs.

Because CAR T-cell therapies are so personalized, they’re also linked with high manufacturing costs. There are different steps to creating a CAR T-cell therapy:

Each of these steps may require specialized equipment and labor from healthcare professionals, and there are also strict quality control measures, all of which can be expensive.

According to some 2024 research, over 200 hours of labor are needed to create a batch of modified T-cells, and up to 48% of the cost of these therapies is due to manufacturing labor.

CAR T-cell therapy is still a relatively new treatment, and there have been years of research and development into it. For a new treatment to be approved, it must have undergone many clinical trials. It also needs to undergo quality and safety reviews by regulatory bodies such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

What’s more, research is still ongoing into future applications of CAR T-cell therapies. Currently, they’re only approved for certain kinds of blood cancer. However, they have shown some benefit in treating solid tumor cancers, so they’re still undergoing trials and review for this purpose.

Pharmaceutical companies often invest a lot of time and money into developing treatments and therapies, so they may look to recover some of these costs by charging high prices. CAR T-cell therapies are also highly patented, which means other companies can’t look into developing cheaper methods until these patents expire.

CAR T-cell therapy can be very expensive, with some 2024 research finding that the median total costs were over $600,000, and 8.5% of patients had total costs exceeding $1 million. These numbers don’t necessarily reflect the patient’s out-of-pocket costs, but the median copayment is still high at $510.

Treatment may be covered by insurance, but this usually depends on several factors. It will generally need to be prescribed for an FDA-approved indication (a variety of blood cancers), and you may need to prove that it is clinically necessary for you. You may need to show that you’ve tried other unsuccessful treatments before this one.

CAR T-cell therapy may also be covered by Medicare and Medicaid, and depending on your plan, you may only need to pay toward a copayment or deductible for your treatment.

Some manufacturers may have their own financial assistance programs for people taking CAR T-cell therapy. For example, Breyanzi, which provides the Bristol Myers Squibb CAR T-cell therapy product, offers a copay assistance program to cover out-of-pocket expenses for patients with commercial insurance.

You may also be able to reach out to nonprofit organizations and charities for support in finding financial assistance for treatment. There are also grants available to provide funds to help with travel and lodging costs if you need to travel to receive treatment.

CAR T-cell therapy is a very personalized and specialized form of cancer treatment that involves modifying the patient’s own cells and reinfusing them to help fight cancer cells. However, it is associated with high costs due to manufacturing and labor costs, and the years of research and development.

Insurance may cover CAR T-cell therapy, and there may also be financial assistance programs availabl to help offset some of the costs.

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