Carvykti Surpasses $1.8 Billion in Global Sales, Marking a Milestone for Chinese Innovative Drug

　　【Pharmaceutical Network Industry DynamicsIn the biopharmaceutical field, products with annual sales exceeding $1 billion are vividly referred to as "blockbuster" drugs. Reportedly, another blockbuster drug has emerged from China's innovative pharmaceutical industry: Carvykti (Ciltacabtagene Autoleucel Injection), a CAR-T product developed by the Chinese innovative drug company Legend Biotech.
 

According to the data, the sales of Cilta-cel Injection increased significantly in 2025, with global sales reaching $18.87 billion, a 95.95% increase compared to $9.63 billion in the same period of 2024. In the fourth quarter of 2025, the product's sales reached $5.55 billion, a year-on-year increase of 65.8%.
 

$1.887 Billion! This also means that Cilta-cel has become a "billion-dollar molecule" produced in China. Data shows that Carvykti is a CAR-T therapy targeting B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA). In 2017, Johnson & Johnson and Legend Biotech reached a global collaboration on the CAR-T product Carvykti, with an upfront payment of $350 million. In February 2022, the product received FDA approval in the United States for the treatment of patients with multiple myeloma who have received four or more prior lines of therapy.
 

At the 44th J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, Legend Biotech disclosed data showing that the cumulative number of patients treated with Cilta-cel has exceeded 10,000 cases. The Raritan production base of Cilta-cel in the United States has completed its physical expansion and is currently the largest cell therapy production facility in the U.S.
 

In 2025, the global business footprint of Cilta-cel further expanded, with availability in over 279 treatment centers across 14 markets. Currently, the revenue from Cilta-cel is mainly derived from the U.S. market, where the income reached $1.493 billion in 2025, accounting for nearly 80% of the total revenue. In the Chinese market, although Cilta-cel has been approved for marketing, commercial sales have not yet commenced.
 

Data shows that Legend Biotech is a large independent cell therapy company dedicated to developing groundbreaking therapies that could transform the landscape of cancer treatment. Cilta-cel has already achieved remarkable results in the global market, which may help Legend Biotech become profitable. Company insiders stated that the company is expected to achieve transformative growth by 2026 by promoting the global application of cilta-cel and striving to achieve profitability this year. It is reported that in terms of expanding new indications, Legend Biotech completed the enrollment of participants for the Phase 3 CARTITUDE-6 registrational clinical trial in August 2025. This study targets newly diagnosed multiple myeloma patients who are eligible for transplantation.
 

In recent years, pharmaceutical companies have been actively strengthening the development of CAR-T therapies. As of now, including Legend Biotech's Carvykti, there are already 6 to 7 CAR-T therapies that have been launched in China. Moreover, many Chinese innovative drug companies have laid out plans for in vivo CAR-T technology and have made considerable progress. For instance, CSPC Pharmaceutical Group recently announced that its self-developed in vivo CAR-T product, SYS6055 injection, has been approved by the National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) to conduct clinical trials in China. This product directly generates CD19-targeted CAR-T cells in vivo through a lentiviral vector, providing a new potential treatment option for patients with relapsed/refractory aggressive B-cell lymphoma.
 

SYS6055 Injection is the first in vivo CAR-T product approved for clinical trials in China. Compared with traditional ex vivo CAR-T therapies, it utilizes innovative lentiviral vector technology to achieve direct in vivo generation of CAR-T cells, demonstrating potential advantages in treatment cost, accessibility, and immediacy. The approved clinical indication for this trial is relapsed/refractory aggressive B-cell lymphoma. Additionally, this product also holds potential for treating other CD19-positive B-cell malignancies and autoimmune diseases, showing significant clinical development value.
 

In addition, there are a large number of Chinese innovative drug companies such as Everest Medicines, Gracell Biotechnologies, BDGene, and Bionova Biotech, which have significant layouts in the in vivo CAR-T field.
 

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