A Dubai hospital has announced it will become one of the first centres outside of the US to offer a groundbreaking new gene-therapy treatment for spinal muscular atrophy.
Medcare Royal Specialty Hospital in Al Qusais will provide the newly licensed treatment, called Itvisma, to patients with spinal muscular atrophy or SMA who are aged above two years old or weigh more than 21kg.
Clinicians at the centre said they expect that patients will travel to Dubai from across the globe to receive the drug.
Zolgensma, a gene-therapy treatment for SMA that was licensed several years ago, was available only to very young children, limiting treatment options for older people with the disease.
SMA can cause severe disability and, in some cases, proves fatal in young children.
Expanding support
Earlier this month the Emirates Drug Establishment (EDE) granted regulatory approval for Itvisma to be made available in the UAE, making the country just the second in the world to give the drug the green light. The US Food and Drug Administration approved the treatment last month.
Patients who live in the UAE, the region and further afield are likely to be treated with Itvisma at Medcare Royal Specialty Hospital.
Since 2020, Medcare, a private healthcare provider that is part of Aster DM Healthcare, has used gene therapy to treat 180 children with SMA, among them patients who have travelled from Iran, Turkey, Nepal, Romania, India and Ethiopia.
While the cost of Itvisma has not been publicly announced, it is expected to carry a heavy price tag given that Zolgensma, which works in a similar way, has been described as the world’s most expensive medicine, costing around $2 million per patient.
Transforming care
Dr Vivek Mu
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