A type of
gene therapy has finally been approved in Europe: patients who suffer from acute
pancreatitis will be able to have a better life thanks to a drug called
Glybera.
The drug Glybera was designed to fight an
especial type of acute pancreatitis. This type of pancreatitis comes from a
genetically inherited protein deficiency and affects about 300 and 750 patients
in Europe. Patients who suffer from this disease are unable to process fat particles
carried in their blood, leading to the inflammation of the pancreas, and the inflammation
of the pancreas can cause death.
As we know,
gene therapy is the use of DNA as a medicine to treat a disease. The surprising
fact here is that the drug Glybera is the first type of gene therapy ever approved
in Europe. Patients who suffer from acute pancreatitis had to rigorously restrict
the amount of fat they consume as the only resort to deal with the disease;
now, Glybera prevents the inflammation of the pancreas, which avoids the pain associated
with it, among other benefits. Patients’ lives will have a significant impact
due to this.
No matter how good this sounds, I can’t help
but wonder: Isn’t this a “baby step” for gene therapy? And if so, isn’t now
more likely to happen that later in time gene therapy will be used to cope with
multiple diseases and that itself may lead to other uses of gene therapy? I think
that even though it helps to improve people’s life, it’s dangerous.
For now, this may be the only chance for these people to struggle against their problem; I agree that a gene therapy can be a hazardous treatment, yet the alternative to this may not show up for a long time. This procedure is a kind of gene therapy and there will be more gene therapies, because if the scientists have achieved success treating one disease, nothing is going to stop them from looking for other circumstances which gene therapy can be suitable options.
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