Patients’ Access to Advanced Cancer Therapies: Ethics and Equity of Access

2021

This project uses expert interviews and doctrinal research to investigate the legal and ethical issues around delivering access to advanced cancer therapies, focusing on Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-cell Immunotherapy (CAR-T).

CAR-T therapy involves isolating a patient’s T-cells, which are engineered to attack the patient’s cancer cells when placed back into the body. It offers immense potential for cancer-care, and where successful can lead to full remission of cancer.

However, CAR-T therapy can also pose risks of life-threatening side-effects in some cases, and careful choices around who would benefit from access to such therapies are needed. Furthermore, due to the costs of CAR-T therapy it is not currently accessible to all patients. This project examines the legal and ethical issues around the provision of and access to CAR-T therapies for patients.