Hans Howe

Tell me you didn’t see this coming….
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Curing disease with gene therapy may be bad business.

A drug giant sold off its miracle cures, because they might not turn it enough profit.

What they’re saying: Earlier this week, a Goldman Sachs analyst asked: “is curing patients a sustainable business model?”
That, predictably, prompted outcry.

Now: GlaxoSmithKline sold off its gene therapies—straight up, outright cures for diseases—to startup Orchard Therapeutics for a 20 percent stake in the firm.
The problem: Genetic treatments cure people, so firms will run out of patients. Plus many of the treatable diseases are rare, so there aren’t many patients anyway.

What now? “Society has to find a balance between the extraordinary value we are bringing and a sustainable business model,” says Mark Rothera, CEO of Orchard.

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