Accounting for All Costs in the Total Cost of Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-Cell Immunotherapy—Reply

In Reply We appreciate the opportunity to respond to comments from Whittington and colleagues on our research letter, which estimated costs associated with the chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) immunotherapies tisagenlecleucel (Kymriah; Novartis) and axicabtagene ciloleucel (Yescarta; Kite Pharma). Using publicly available data sources and results from the clinical trials evaluating these agents, we estimated the costs directly related to the administration and adverse effects of CAR-T immunotherapies, including manufacturing costs, physician and facility costs for leukapheresis, administration of lymphodepletion therapy, administration of CAR-T therapy, and hospitalizations for cytokine-release syndrome. We estimated the average expected cost of treating a patient with tisagenlecleucel and axicabtagene ciloleucel at $510 963 and $402 647, respectively.

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