(Yicai Global) March 1 -- Shares in Legend Biotech Corp. surged in after-hours trading yesterday after the Chinese biopharmaceutical company said that its bone marrow tumor cell therapy had been given the greenlight by US regulators to go to market.

Legend Biotech’s share price [NASDAQ:LEGN] jumped 12.1 percent to USD44.38.

Cilta-cel, a chimeric-antigen receptor T-cell therapy used to treat patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma, has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, parent firm Kingsway Biotechnology Corp. said yesterday.

Costing USD465,000, Nanjing-based Legend Biotech’s treatment is more expensive than rival drug Abecma, made by US pharma giant Bristol-Myers Squibb, which costs USD419,500.

The firm has hired a sales, marketing and training team and is ready to take this new drug to market, Chief Executive Officer Huang Ying said.

The FDA approval is also expected to accelerate the launch of the drug in China. China’s CAR-T market was worth around CNY200 million (USD31.7 million) last year and should reach CNY28.9 billion (USD4.5 billion) by 2030.

The firm is already building a facility in Belgium with Janssen Pharmaceuticals, a subsidiary of US healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson, to produce Cilta-cel. No details on cost have been given. In 2017, Beerse-based Janssen invested USD350 million into the research of the drug. As a result, it was agreed that all China profits will be split at a ratio of 30:70 between Janssen and Legend Biotech, and all overseas profits will be shared fifty-fifty.

Editor: Kim Taylor