Equecabtagene autoleucel · sold in China as FUCASO
A CAR T-cell therapy for multiple myeloma that has come back or stopped responding to other treatment. Made from your own immune cells, delivered at SinoUnited Health in Shanghai.
A plain-language look at what Equ-cel is and how it works — general to this class of therapy, not specific to any one patient's result.
Equecabtagene autoleucel — Equ-cel for short — is a type of CAR T-cell therapy. Your own T-cells (part of your immune system) are collected, then re-engineered to recognize a protein called BCMA that sits on the surface of myeloma cells. Once returned to your body, these modified cells seek out and destroy myeloma cells.
It is an autologous therapy, meaning it is made from your own cells rather than a donor's. Equ-cel is a BCMA-directed CAR T-cell therapy developed in China and approved by China's National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) for relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma.
Adult patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma, who have demonstrated disease progression after at least three lines of prior treatment (at least one proteasome inhibitor and one immunomodulatory agent).
Equ-cel follows the same CAR T-cell pathway as other therapies of its class — offered at SinoUnited as an all-inclusive “2+21” package across two trips to Shanghai, with the manufacturing weeks spent at home.
Blood and eligibility tests, then your T-cells are collected by apheresis — both done on-site at SinoUnited Health.
Trip one · ~1 week, ShanghaiYour cells are engineered to target BCMA and expanded while you return home and wait.
3–4 weeks · at homeA short course of chemotherapy prepares your body to receive the engineered cells.
Trip two · ShanghaiYour Equ-cel is returned in a single infusion, followed by close inpatient monitoring.
Trip two · ~3 weeks, ShanghaiThe full pathway at SinoUnited spans approximately two months across two trips to Shanghai, with the manufacturing period spent at home. See the patient journey for the detail.
Eligibility is set honestly here as a general guide — the decision itself rests with a qualified physician who has reviewed your case.
This information is a general guide only. Whether Equ-cel is right for you is a decision made by a qualified physician after reviewing your individual case.
Equ-cel is directed at the B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA), expressed on the plasma cells that drive multiple myeloma.
Multiple myeloma is a cancer of the plasma cells — the antibody-producing white blood cells in the bone marrow. It is not usually curable, but is treatable through successive lines of therapy that control the disease.
For disease that has relapsed or become refractory after exposure to standard immunomodulatory drugs and proteasome inhibitors, BCMA-directed CAR T-cell therapy is an established option targeting the B-cell maturation antigen expressed on plasma cells.
Multiple myeloma detailsTwo blocks, kept deliberately separate: what is true of this class of therapy in general, and what SinoUnited provides.
Like all CAR T-cell therapies, Equ-cel can cause side effects that need close monitoring. The two most discussed are cytokine release syndrome (CRS) — the immune system reacting as the therapy works — and neurological effects (ICANS). Most cases are manageable when caught early, which is why treatment is delivered as an inpatient stay with continuous monitoring.
SinoUnited Health provides infusion and recovery as a supervised inpatient stay, with on-site intensive care available if escalation is ever needed.
Tocilizumab, the standard treatment for severe cytokine release syndrome, is available on site.
5on-site ICUsSinoUnited's CAR-T program has Dr. Lily Zhou, M.D., Ph.D., Chief of Hematology, with a postdoctoral fellowship at UCSF and 25 publications indexed in PubMed. Dr. Zhou co-authored a 2025 peer-reviewed case report in Frontiers in Immunology on BCMA CAR-T treatment — the same class of therapy as Equ-cel.
A case report describes the course of a single patient. It is evidence that SinoUnited's clinical lead is published in this field — it is not, and must not be read as, an indication of outcomes across patients. Outcomes vary and are determined by individual circumstances.
Meet Dr. Zhou
SinoUnited offers CAR-T as an all-inclusive “2+21” package — covering the collection stay and the three-week infusion stay. The full breakdown of what's included, and pricing, lives on the Costs page as a single source of truth.
It is delivered at SinoUnited Health in Shanghai. Both collection and infusion are done on-site — they cannot be carried out in your home country.
About two months across two trips to Shanghai, with the four-to-six-week manufacturing period spent at home in between.
CAR-T is offered as one all-inclusive “2+21” package. The full cost breakdown is set out on the Costs page.
The most discussed are cytokine release syndrome (CRS) and neurological effects (ICANS), which is why treatment is delivered as a monitored inpatient stay. SinoUnited-specific detail will be added once confirmed by Dr. Zhou.
Yes. SinoUnited coordinates follow-up with your local physicians, with three-monthly reviews recommended after treatment.
Start a remote assessment before you travel. It asks only for basic contact details and your diagnosis — your records are then reviewed by Dr. Zhou's hematology team.