(Yicai Global) June 24 -- A joint venture between Shanghai's Fosun Pharmaceutical Group and US-based Kite Pharma has obtained China's first approval to sell a chimeric antigen receptor T cell therapy to treat lymphoma, a type of blood cancer.

Yescarta will be used to treat adult patients with relapsed or refractory large B-cell lymphoma, Fosun Kite Biotechnology, the JV, said in a statement yesterday. The parent of Kite Pharma is US drug giant Gilead Sciences.

Fosun Pharma has no information about the drug's pricing yet, the company said to Yicai Global. Each treatment regimen costs USD373,000 in the States.

Yescarta is the first US Food and Drug Administration-approved CAR-T cell immunotherapy that uses the patient's white blood cells to attack lymphoma cells. The pricey drug's global sales rose 23 percent to USD563 million last year from 2019.

Fosun Pharma and California's Kite Pharma formed Fosun Kite in 2017 and quickly got the green light to test cell therapies in China. In December 2019, the JV completed its first production base to make Yescarta in Shanghai.

Editor: Emmi Laine, Xiao Yi