AstraZeneca buys Chinese cancer therapy firm Gracell for $1.2bn

AstraZeneca has struck a deal to buy a Chinese cancer therapy company for up to $1.2bn (£950m), as Britain’s biggest drugmaker expands its footprint in its second-largest market. The Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical firm announced on Tuesday it would acquire Gracell Biotechnologies, which is focused on a type of cancer therapy known as CAR-T that modifies a patient’s cells to fight the disease. The deal marks a further investment in cancer research and treatment, which accounts for about one-third of AstraZeneca’s business, as well as its continued push to expand in China.…

Car T-cell therapy shows early promise in treating gastric cancers

An experimental cancer therapy that infuses designer immune cells into patients has shown early promise in a clinical trial by shrinking tumours in the digestive system. Interim results from the first phase of the clinical trial found that nearly half, or 48.6%, of the 37 patients treated so far responded to the infusions with their tumours reducing in size after the therapy. While the findings come from an initial safety assessment of the approach, researchers running the trial in Beijing believe it demonstrates the potential for genetically-altered immune cells to…