The cell and gene therapy field hit major milestones over the last few years. In the summer of 2017, the Food and Drug Administration approved a first-of-its-kind cellular medicine from Novartis for a hard-to-treat form of leukemia. Less than two months later, another cell therapy developed by Kite Pharma was cleared for patients with a different blood cancer.
Before the end of that year, Spark Therapeutics received the first-ever FDA nod for a gene therapy targeting an inherited disorder. And since then, a small crop of advanced medicines developed by Kite, Juno Therapeutics and AveXis have come to market.