Gene therapy edges towards commercial reality
By Reuters,
Reuters
| 05. 25. 2009
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...
Related Articles
Media coverage of recent developments in embryo gene editing might seem to suggest that gene-edited babies are close to becoming a reality. As tech billionaires eager to profit off of techno-eugenics invest in “designer baby” technologies, attempts to normalize heritable genome editing – which remains unsafe and raises significant ethical and societal concerns – are especially dangerous. It’s worth taking a closer look at these developments and what they mean, in a way that pushes back on narratives normalizing the...
By Roxanne Khamsi, The Atlantic | 07.07.2026
When Ludivine Verboogen and Romain Alderweireldt’s third child was born in Belgium in late 2015, they marveled at his long fingers. Perhaps one day he will be a famous pianist, they thought. But soon Ludivine grew worried that her son...
By Carl Zimmer and Marco Hernandez , The New York Times | 07.01.2026
Scientists have long dreamed of discovering the alchemy by which chemicals can be turned into life. On Wednesday, a team at the University of Minnesota announced that it had taken a major step toward that vision.
Blending together dozens of...
By Michael Le Page , New Scientist | 06.25.2026
We now know the master gene that controls embryonic development in people. Called NANOG, its role has been identified by making precise changes to the DNA of fertilised eggs using a technique called CRISPR base editing.
The discovery might lead...
