Singapore Subsidizes Aggressive Blood Cancer Cart T Cell Therapy

SINGAPORE, Sept. 12, 2025 — A high-cost drug used to treat a type of aggressive blood cancer has been approved for government subsidies in Singapore. Axicabtagene ciloleucel, marketed as Yescarta, is a new type of gene therapy that uses cells as “living drugs” to fight cancer. It is the second such treatment to be subsidized in the country, following tisagenlecleucel (marketed as Kymriah).

The Ministry of Health (MOH) confirmed the addition of Yescarta to its Cell, Tissue and Gene Therapy Product (CTGTP) List for specific clinical uses, which came after a price reduction by the drug’s manufacturer. This provides a lifeline for patients who have not responded to conventional treatments and would otherwise be unable to afford the drug’s high price tag.

Yescarta is a type of personalized cancer treatment called chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy that modifies a patient’s own immune cells to make them more effective at fighting cancer. Both Yescarta and Kymriah are reportedly sold in Singapore at approximately US$375,000 per treatment.

Eligible Singapore citizens can now receive a subsidy of up to 75%, capped at $150,000, while permanent residents can receive a subsidy of 22.5%, capped at $45,000, with final subsidy levels determined by household means-testing. The approval of a second CTGTP comes ahead of a key shift in MOH policy, which will extend MediShield Life and MediSave coverage to listed CTGTPs starting in October 2025.

According to Dr. Chen Yunxin, a senior consultant at Singapore General Hospital’s (SGH) department of haematology, Yescarta has been shown to be superior to standard treatments for patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (LBCL) whose cancer has relapsed or stopped responding to treatment. Without subsidies, such treatments would be out of reach for the vast majority of patients, he noted.