Advocacy group meeting with Novartis to discuss price for CAR T

Patients For Affordable Drugs said that Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS; SIX:NOVN) will meet with the advocacy group to discuss the pricing of the pharma's acute lymphoblastic leukemia therapy tisagenlecleucel-T (CTL019). The group sent a letter to Novartis CEO Joseph Jimenez, requesting the meeting and called on the pharma to set a "fair price" for the chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy, which is under FDA review to treat pediatric and young adult relapsed or refractory B cell ALL, with a PDUFA date of Oct. 3.

In the letter, David Mitchell, founder and president of the advocacy group, said U.S. taxpayers "bore costs during the riskiest development phases" of CAR T science, investing more than $200 million "as far back as 1993 when there was no guarantee that the research would be successful."...