Subsidies now available for cell, tissue and gene therapy products

Singapore citizens can get up to 75 per cent of treatment cost subsidised, capped at $150,000

- Zhaki Abdullah

Patients here who require certain costly cell, tissue and gene therapy products (CTGTPs) will now be eligible for subsidies, starting with one product for blood cancers.

This opens the door to a new range of treatments harnessing cells as living drugs to treat or reverse various health conditions.

The subsidies took effect on Aug 1, according to the Ministry of Health (MOH), which noted that the availability of such treatments varies at healthcare institutions, depending on the clinical conditions commonly managed by the institution and the treatments usually prescribed by the doctors.

Made from human or animal cells or tissues, or man-made genetic material, CTGTPS can be used to diagnose, treat or prevent a variety of conditions.

Several new cell therapy products have been approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration in recent years, with more in the works.

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, for example, allows cancer patients to recover more quickly without the need for aggressive chemotherapy, and achieve longer-lasting remissions.