Roche's cancer therapy approved by FDA, intensifying competition with AbbVie.

Roche's antibody-based therapy, Columvi, has been approved by the FDA to treat advanced blood cancer in adults who have received at least two prior lines of treatment before their cancer relapsed. The therapy is expected to cost about $350,000 for the full course and would be available in the United States in the coming weeks. The approval heats up competition with AbbVie, whose therapy, Epkinly, was approved last month. Both therapies belong to a class of bispecific antibodies designed to bring a cancer cell and an immune cell together so the body's immune system can kill the cancer.