Thank you for giving me my freedom back

£1.65m gene editing sees boy flourish

- BY ELLA PICKOVER

A BOY who was one of the first children to be given a £1.65million treatment has returned to the hospital to thank his nurse for his cure.

Adam Rehman was given a onetime gene editing therapy to cure the blood disorder thalassaemia.

Casgevy, also known as exa-cel, was the first treatment to be licensed using gene-editing tool Crispr, which earned its inventors the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 2020.

The treatment works by editing the faulty gene in a patient’s stem cells.

A confidential deal has been struck between the NHS and manufacturer Vertex, which means it is likely to be paying less than the official price of £1.65million per patient.