STAT+: Gene therapy is in crisis. For nine hours, the field’s leading minds looked for a solution
WASHINGTON — Jennifer Puck has successfully treated 10 children with a gene therapy for a fatal disorder that decimates their immune system. But she has no idea how to get her drug approved and frankly is running out of ideas.
“I wish I had a clue about where to go from here,” said Puck, an immunologist at University of California, San Francisco, from a plush chair above Union Station.
The problem is simple: Size. Puck’s therapy is for a disease, Artemis-SCID, that affects just two to three new U.S. patients every year — far too few for a company to generate a profit, or to even run the kind of studies regulators usually demand before approving drugs.
Continue to STAT+ to read the full story…
