Divarasib Extends Survival; Bristol CAR-T Patient Dies — SkimNews
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- Bristol Myers Squibb reported that one patient died after receiving its investigational CAR-T therapy in an early Phase 1 trial for multiple sclerosis.
- Bristol Myers Squibb said the patient developed motor symptoms that did not resolve with standard autoimmune treatments, then received a potent immunosuppressant, developed septic pneumonia and died.
- Bristol Myers Squibb said a series of other complications before the CAR-T therapy confounded its ability to determine the root cause of the death.
- Divarasib helped patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer live almost six months longer than two competitive medicines in a late-stage study.
- Divarasib outperformed similar drugs from Amgen and Bristol Myers Squibb in patients whose tumors carried the KRAS G12C mutation and had spread, after prior treatments including chemotherapy.
Why it matters: Bristol Myers Squibb’s reported death adds a concrete safety concern to early autoimmune CAR-T research, but the company’s own account limits the causal claim: one patient in the Phase 1 multiple-sclerosis trial had multiple prior complications, and Bristol says those confound root-cause determination.
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