The £1.7bn wave of new NHS drugs that can alter our DNA to beat heart disease, cancer and even blindness..
. and are already curing patients By Meike Leonard Published: 16:54, 18 August 2024 | Updated: 16:55, 18 August 2024 e-mail View comments Drugs that can edit and rewrite DNA are set to banish problems ranging from high cholesterol to blood cancer – ushering in what experts have deemed the greatest medical breakthrough since antibiotics. For example, the pioneering treatment has already been used to combat a number of previously incurable conditions.
Earlier this month the NHS pledged to roll out a £1.7 million therapy for sufferers of a rare blood disorder – and more are on the way. The Mail on Sunday can reveal that drugs for hereditary heart disease, leukaemia and urinary tract infections have shown ground-breaking results in trials and could be available to millions of patients within just three years.
‘Gene-editing therapies are the future of medicine,’ said Professor Robin Lovell-Badge, a genetics expert at the Francis Crick Institute. ‘If they really do provide a cure for these diseases – and all expectations are that they will – they’re a one-off treatment that lasts a lifetime. We could give patients their lives back.
’ One patient who has already benefited from gene-editing therapy is 31-year-old Elliot Mason, who was born with severe haemophilia B But as these medications become more widespread, other experts are raising concerns around their .