Health security

China’s Curing Cancer Faster and Cheaper Than Anywhere Else

Zhang Haitao was a basketball-loving teenager who dreamed of going to a specialized sports high school when he got a pain in his right arm that just wouldn’t go away. It turned out to be acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

The discovery set Zhang and his family, from a village deep in the mountains of southwestern China's Sichuan province, on a journey familiar to most cancer patients — a revolving door of hospital visits, blood tests and three rounds of chemotherapy. It was then that Zhang’s doctor suggested a last-ditch option: an experimental gene therapy being trialed by a Chinese startup called Gracell Biotechnology Ltd.

After spending three weeks in the hospital in May — during which white blood cells were removed from his body, genetically engineered, and then infused back in — an analysis of Zhang’s bone marrow in June showed his body was clear of cancer.

Seven months later, monthly medical tests conducted at a hospital in the nearby Chinese metropolis of Chongqing show he remains cancer free.