Chapter 3: Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Companies are Hopping Onboard

                After reading the article written by the Boston Globe’s Robert Langreth titled, “Money flows again to gene-therapy drugs investors once shunned”, it is abundantly clear that gene-therapies are in our near future for treatment. Although there are still a lot of research that is being done to make sure that the therapies are safe, there are a lot of biomedical and pharmaceutical companies that are hopping on board in terms of funding.

                This treatment approach has always appeared to have a lot of promising points even after some patients suffered fatal side effects in the 1990’s and the early 2000’s. Thanks for financing that enabled more research to be done in the field there have been some extremely promising clinical trials that show new delivery methods that are much safer for patients. Most recent clinical trial successes have been for patients affected by hemophilia, eye disease, and cancer. The funding that is being done by biomedical and pharmaceutical companies are appearing so promising that there are actual companies that are opening stock specifically for gene therapy technology such as the therapeutic company, Regenxbio. 

 

                From a consumer perspective, with all of these companies that are being involved it really begs the question of how much will this therapy cost and how will insurance companies be a part of it, if at all? The article from the Boston Globe does not touch upon how it will be available to patients and I feel as though that is a huge point that should have been mentioned. 

References: 

 http://www.regenxbio.com/

 https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/05/20/money-flows-aain-gene-therapy-drugs-investors-once-shunned/8SfciTEqF032uDRS4fhpxN/story.html