Swiss to Take On Big Pharma With Cheaper Cancer Treatment

(Bloomberg) -- Some of Switzerland’s top university hospitals are teaming up to take on the soaring cost of cancer cell therapy offered by big pharma.

The hospitals are hoping to offer the treatment for between 150,000 Swiss francs ($151,026) and 200,000 francs. That’s about one-third cheaper than the commercialized process offered by the pharmaceutical industry.

“We are convinced that such cancer therapies can be realized at significantly lower costs,” Roger von Moos, president of the Swiss Association for Clinical Cancer Research and head physician at the Chur Cantonal Hospital, told Swiss newspaper NZZ am Sonntag.

Under commercial cancer cell therapy, a patient’s blood is drawn and certain immune cells are modified in a laboratory. The genetically modified cells are then returned to the patient and once back in the body, they identify and destroy tumor cells.

Pilot projects have started in Lausanne and Bern and university hospitals in Basel and Zurich are also planning to join, the newspaper reported.

They expect to reduce costs by treating cells in Switzerland instead of sending them abroad for genetic processing. Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis AG sends blood to Germany for processing while Gilead Sciences Inc. sends cells to the U.S., NZZ reported.

With the knowledge and infrastructure of local university hospitals, “Switzerland can become an academic competence center for cell therapy,” said Thomas Cerny, the president of Swiss Cancer League, who is co-developing the new university platform.

To contact the reporter on this story: Andy Hoffman in Geneva at ahoffman31@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: James Herron at jherron9@bloomberg.net, Sara Marley, Hilton Shone

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.