Comment by fakedang
What the article does not mention is that one of the more recent key biological therapies that is used is asparaginase, which has proven to be extremely effective for ALL.
Also surprisingly, the article did not mention that there's a severe shortage of this therapy currently in the world, which has recently affected treatment progress worldwide, especially in the developing world.
Asparaginase can be made dirt cheaply (it's used in food processing for breadmaking, frying, etc, to destroy certain carcinogens), but the product is extremely unstable for the kind of purity that is required for ALL treatments. The shortage is because there's only one manufacturer now.
This comment took me on a walk down memory lane...
The shortage of asparaginase (brand name Erwinaze) was very stressful during my daughter's recovery! This was in 2021.
She had allergic reactions to two other medicines, and Erwinaze was identified as an alternative. We ended up getting a batch of Erwinaze, but she was allergic to that too. She ended up getting it on a slow drip under full hospitalization instead of a relatively quick visit at the infusion center.
If anyone else is in a similar situation, this patient advocate might be able to help:
https://www.angelsforchange.org/