Report id’s medico-ethical issues restrict gene therapy growth
11/25/2005 Europe Wai Lang Chu in-Pharma Technologist (www.in-pharmatechnologist.com) Increasing knowledge about how to manage the risks of gene therapy is set to usher in a new era in disease therapies, with the prospect of developing treatments in treating rare, inherited, or life-threatening diseases very real. Gene therapy has gone to great pains to deal with the toxicological complications and poor therapy efficacy that have hampered the growth of this sector. So much so that the US gene therapies market, reveals that revenues expect to reach approximately $125 million (€106 million) in 2006 growing to approximately $6541 million in 2011. This is not to say that gene therapy has not seen its fair share of clinical failures. Poorly regulated trials, and high levels of clinical attrition have seen the promise of gene therapy suffer from negative coverage and unsubstantiated claims. Despite these remarkable strides, the fact remains that most biotech companies are still years away from having an approved and marketed product. The only exception to this is the China-based company Shenzhen SiBiono GeneTech, whose product Gendicine, made news in October 2003 by becoming the first gene therapy in the world approved for marketing. The treatment consists of an adenovirus designed to insert a gene called p53. This gene codes for a protein that triggers cell suicide when cells start to run amok, preventing them becoming cancerous. Many tumours arise after the mutation or inactivation of p53, and in cancers of this type restoring the protein should kill the tumour cells. [...]