The Aesthetics Advisor

A few months ago, India’s drug regulator Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO), approved the commercial use of CAR-T cell therapy. The therapy includes genetically reprogramming a patient’s immune system to fight cancer. Today, the therapy has turned out to be a lifesaver for many patients, including for Dr (Col) V K Gupta, a Delhi-based gastroenterologist with 28 years of experience of working in the Indian Army, Indian Express reported. He accessed the therapy by paying just INR 42 lakh or $50,000, whereas a similar therapy costs up to INR 4 crore $480,000 abroad. Doctors at the Tata Memorial Hospital, where Gupta underwent the procedure, said he is “currently free of cancer cells.” Gupta is the first patient to have achieved this status, something he could only dream of just a year ago. The doctor who performed the therapy on Gupta said he was totally free of cancer cells.  “While it’s premature to claim a lifelong cure, the patient is currently free of cancer cell...

In 2015, Alka Dwivedi, then a graduate student at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, began wondering whether a CAR T-cell therapy could be made in India. At the time, several CAR T-cell therapies—a type of immunotherapy in which a person’s T cells are modified in a laboratory to selectively kill cancer cells—were being tested in clinical trials in the United States. And although CAR T-cell therapies looked to be promising treatments for blood cancers like leukemia and lymphoma, they could have serious side effects and were expected to carry a high price tag once approved for use. Both issues, she felt, meant that these cutting-edge treatments—at least in the form in which they were being produced at the time—wouldn’t be a viable option for many people in low- and middle-income countries like India. Dr. Dwivedi and her colleagues envisioned designing a different CAR T-cell therapy, one that could be produced in, and meet the needs of, people with cancer in their country. B...