Medicare Proposes Increasing Payments for CAR-T Cancer Treatment

The U.S. government is proposing to increase payments for innovative CAR-T cancer therapies, the administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said.

The proposal, to be released April 23, is part of a broader effort to speed government reimbursement for new medical technologies, CMS Administrator Seema Verma said in a call with reporters.

CAR-T treatments are considered an important new option for leukemia and lymphoma that don’t respond to standard drugs. But they have struggled to sell well because of low reimbursement, frustrating Gilead Sciences Inc. and Novartis AG, which were the first drugmakers to bring the ...