Nepal gave its first blood-cancer patient a homegrown CAR-T therapy

A 20-year-old from Dhading, first diagnosed with leukemia at 17, became the first person in Nepal to receive a CAR-T therapy developed and made entirely inside the country. Doctors at Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital in Kathmandu gave him the treatment on September 27: his own immune cells, reprogrammed in a Nepali lab to hunt his cancer, then given back to him. The Centre for Regenerative Medicine Nepal started this program in 2022, won clinical approval this year, and says the young man is recovering and clinically stable. Their goal is simple and enormous: make this kind of advanced treatment reachable for patients who could never afford it abroad.