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March 15 (Reuters) - Advisers to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday unanimously voted in favor of allowing the use of Johnson & Johnson's JNJ.N cell therapy as an earlier treatment for a type of blood cancer.

All eleven voting members of the advisory panel agreed that benefits of J&J's Carvykti outweighed the risks of the therapy when given as an earlier treatment.

The panel is set to discuss and vote on the use of Bristol Myers Squibb's BMY.N therapy Abecma as an earlier treatment later on Friday.

The treatments - Carvykti and Abecma - are already approved in the US for patients with multiple myeloma whose cancer has returned or stopped responding to four prior lines of treatment.

The companies are seeking the use of both the CAR-T therapies as earlier treatments, which could allow their use in a larger and less severely affected patient population.

(Reporting by Bhanvi Satija and Sneha S K in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)

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