Originally reported November 14, 2026. China’s newly announced 2026 national basic medical insurance drug list includes relmacabtagene autoleucel injection, sold as Benoda by JW Therapeutics. According to The Paper’s original report, it is the first—and, as of that report, the only—CAR-T therapy on the list.
The listing marks a change in how the costly, individually manufactured treatment may be paid for. The drug had entered China’s first national commercial-insurance innovative-drug list in 2025, alongside four other CAR-T therapies. JW Therapeutics chairman and CEO Tian Feng told The Paper that commercial-insurance support had not substantially increased use: the company treated more than 200 patients a year, about a third of whom had such support.
The negotiated basic-insurance price was not disclosed. An unnamed industry source cited in the report estimated that the price could fall below 300,000 yuan and that patients’ out-of-pocket costs after reimbursement could be under 100,000 yuan. Those figures are estimates, not an announced price or a guaranteed amount for patients to pay.
Tian described the insurance negotiation as a series of discussions over what patients could afford and what the company could sustain, rather than a simple round of steep price cuts. He attributed the company’s ability to lower costs in part to control over its lentiviral-vector manufacturing technology. The report also noted JW Therapeutics’ 2025 technology agreements with Bristol Myers Squibb and Regeneron; it did not specify their financial terms.
According to the report, the therapy has three approved lymphoma-related indications, and 1,200 patients or clinical-trial participants had received it. Tian said more than 200 hospitals nationwide were certified to use the product. He said the company had production capacity in reserve, while cautioning that demand following the insurance listing was difficult to predict.
