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Indian biotech companies launched gene therapy for sickle cell disease at $30,000 total cost, compared to identical American treatments charging $2.2 million per patient. The Indian therapy shows equal effectiveness while remaining accessible to middle-class families globally.
The therapy modifies bone marrow stem cells to produce healthy red blood cells using CRISPR gene editing. Doctors extract patient stem cells, edit them in laboratories, then return them to the body. Patients become essentially cured of inherited blood disorders. Think of it like fixing a typo in the body's genetic instructions that causes disease.