Stem cell charity Anthony Nolan, alongside blood cancer charities, Blood Cancer UK and Lymphoma Action, have expressed their deep disappointment at NICE’s decision to remove NHS access to the CAR T-cell therapy Tecartus (brexucabtagene autoleucel) for people with relapsed or refractory mantle cell lymphoma (MCL).
NICE has announced that Tecartus, which has been available on the NHS in England and Wales since 2021, will no longer be recommended for patients with this aggressive form of blood cancer. The decision follows final draft guidance published in December 2025, which proposed removing the treatment from the NHS.
While NICE acknowledged that the treatment is clinically effective, it concluded that there was too much uncertainty about the extent of its benefit to recommend it as a cost-effective use of NHS resources.
Anthony Nolan, Blood Cancer UK and Lymphoma Action jointly appealed against NICE’s recommendation, while Tecartus’ manufacturer, Gilead, submitted a separate appeal. Despite these appeals, NICE has now announced that it will uphold its decision, meaning patients with relapsed or refractory MCL will lose access to this treatment option.
The removal of Tecartus leaves patients with relapsed or refractory MCL with very few other possible treatments, most of whom will only have the option of receiving palliative care.
The charities say this decision highlights a wider issue affecting access to CAR T-cell therapies and other advanced cell and gene therapies. These treatments are different from many existing options because they can offer the potential for long-term control of a disease after just a single treatment.
However, for rare cancers such as MCL, where only around 600 people are diagnosed each year in the UK, it can be difficult to gather enough evidence to meet NICE’s requirements when assessing new treatments.
Caitlin Farrow, director of strategy and influencing at Anthony Nolan, said:
We are extremely disappointed by this decision. The National Cancer Plan for England recognises the lifechanging impact that CAR T-cell therapies such as Tecartus can have on patients and their families, yet we are now in a position where people with MCL in England and Wales will no longer have access to this treatment through the NHS.
Tecartus remains available to eligible patients in Scotland, France, the USA and other countries, where it is considered a standard treatment option. Patients with the same disease should not have access to different treatment options simply because of where they live.
The potential of cell and gene therapies for some patients can’t be understated but to reach this potential we need to see government and industry working together to identify how to bring these innovative therapies into the NHS.
Dr Rubina Ahmed, director of research, policy and services at Blood Cancer UK, said:
This is a significant setback for people with relapsed mantle cell lymphoma because for some, Tecartus may be one of the very few remaining treatment options when others have stopped working.
Blood cancer research is helping more people live longer and better lives, but those advances only matter if patients can benefit from them in practice. We are concerned about what this means not only for people affected by mantle cell lymphoma today, but for future access to innovative blood cancer treatments more widely.
We know this news will be incredibly difficult for many people affected by mantle cell lymphoma, and we would encourage anyone worried about what this means for them or someone they love to speak to their medical team or reach out for support.
Ropinder Gill, chief executive at Lymphoma Action, said:
We are deeply disappointed by this decision and our immediate priority at Lymphoma Action is to support anyone affected by it. We know just how strongly our community felt about this particular appraisal and spoke to people who felt highly anxious while waiting for the announcement. We encourage anyone who would like to talk or needs information and support to contact our Helpline Services. Several new treatments are expected to be assessed by NICE over the next year, and we hope some may help to address the gap left by this decision. We will make sure our community is kept up to date with these developments as and when they happen.
At Lymphoma Action, we remain committed to helping effective lymphoma treatments reach the people who need them. We will continue to represent people affected by lymphoma in NICE and other treatment appraisal processes, ensuring their voices and experiences inform decisions. By advocating on behalf of our community and challenging barriers to accessing treatment and care, we will keep working towards a future in which everyone affected by lymphoma can benefit from the best treatment available.
Alison Oliver’s husband, Tom, was diagnosed with MCL in September 2024 at the age of 41. She said:
Doctors found a large tumour in Tom’s colon, and he went from being a fit and healthy firefighter to someone with a cancer diagnosis in the space of 24 hours. The diagnosis came as a horrendous shock and the thought of telling our two young daughters was especially heartbreaking.
Tom went through surgery and then gruelling intensive chemotherapy. He is currently in remission and on maintenance immunotherapy, but we know that his cancer will return at some point in the future
We were told that there were treatments available for when his cancer returned, Tecartus being one of them. This gave us hope that Tom would live long enough to see our daughters into adulthood and made the mental burden of the diagnosis slightly easier to bear.
Tom has returned to work in his role as a firefighter but now we do not know if he will live to see his retirement. To have the vital lifeline of Tecartus removed has been devastating for our family and feels especially unfair when, in the UK, there are fewer treatments available to MCL patients than in other similar countries where CAR T-cell therapy is already seen as standard care.
Nikola Brigden’s husband, Scott, was also in his forties when he was diagnosed with mantle cell lymphoma. She said:
After my husband received his diagnosis, he underwent intensive chemotherapy, immunotherapy and a stem cell transplant. Although he is thankfully in remission, he continues to live with the long-term effects of that treatment and the knowledge that his cancer could return.
Knowing that Tecartus was available if he relapsed gave us some reassurance and hope for the future. For that option to now be taken away is frightening. Without access to Tecartus, there are very few other treatment options if my husband’s cancer returns. Whereas Tecartus would have been a one-off infusion, now the only alternative involves repeated cycles of chemotherapy and immunotherapy over several months.
For families like ours, this is not simply a decision about cost-effectiveness. It is about having treatment options, quality of life and the hope of more time together. Patients with this aggressive and often incurable blood cancer deserve better than to see an established treatment option taken away.
NICE has confirmed that patients who have had their cells collected to start treatment, known as leukapheresis, before the NICE Final Guidance is published will be allowed to proceed to receive Tecartus.
Anthony Nolan encourages patients who have concerns about their treatment to speak to their medical team or get in touch with the charity’s patient services team on 0303 303 0303 or at patientinfo@anthonynolan.org.