UACT is disappointed by the preliminary rejection of Yescarta by the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) over its high price, for two reasons: 1) Gilead is asking too much for the treatment which is largely based upon the US National Institutes of Health (NIH owned inventions, and 2) the UK government has not given any public indication it is considering alternatives to withholding coverage to address the problem of an excessive price. Yescarta is the Gilead trade name for axicabtagene ciloleucel, a CD19-directed chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR T) technology invented by the NIH, licensed to Kite/Gilead and approved by theRead More →