Gene therapy edges towards commercial reality

LONDON, (Reuters) - Gene therapy may be about to become a commercial reality, 20 years after the first experiments with the ground-breaking medical technology.

But the tale of two biotech companies - one British and one U.S. - suggests a tricky road ahead.

On the one side, French authorities recently allowed an experimental gene medicine from Britain's Ark Therapeutics to be prescribed to certain patients with brain cancer, even though it is not approved for general use.

The news boosted hopes that the European Medicines Agency will clear Ark's drug Cerepro for sale across the European Union in the second half of 2009.

By contrast, U.S.-based Introgen Therapeutics - which had been competing to get the first gene therapy approved in Western markets - filed for bankruptcy in December, after a regulatory setback for its experimental cancer drug Advexin.

The last two decades have seen more than 1,470 clinical trials involving gene therapy, two-thirds of them aimed at cancer, according to the Journal of Gene Medicine.

But the only drug to get to market so far has been one for...