China Wants to Win the Gene Therapy Race–And It’ll Spend Millions

November 1, 2023

(MIT Technology Review) – Chinese authorities also may be more willing to spend in this area given the fact that, at least in this one application of gene therapy, the country has raced ahead of its competitors in the West. At least two Western companies have been working on treatments for the exact same type of hearing loss but have not achieved as much success as the Chinese team. “We are in a race. And we won. We have patients with hearing back! We are not in the same league,” Chen says.

Nevertheless, today gene therapy remains a relatively expensive and inaccessible option. Nova Liu, the founder of Shanghai Refreshgene Therapeutics, which financially backed the Chinese research on this gene therapy, estimated that a commercialized product could cost between $125,000 and $250,000. (Read More)