When Nirnay Murthy learned about a treatment for his toddler son’s rare condition, relief quickly gave way to disappointment.
A one-time gene therapy called Zolgensma from the Swiss drugmaker Novartis can halt spinal muscular atrophy, a deadly condition that causes muscles to waste away. But the medicine also carries a price tag of $2.1 million.
That sum felt almost unimaginable to Murthy, a veterinarian in India, where insurance does not cover Zolgensma. Still, Murthy tried. Last year, he crowdfunded $125,000, but it wasn’t nearly enough.
“It just shatters you inside. It makes you feel inadequate,” Murthy said.
Instead, Murthy used the money on a little-known alternative: an experimental gene therapy from a Chinese company called Lantu Biopharma. In May, a doctor dosed his 3-year-old son, Aryan, with the treatment.
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Zolgensma is a miracle of modern medicine, but its steep price has largely placed it out of reach in poorer countries. Now, four Chinese companies are developing competing therapies, with plans to be much less expensive.
The trend is another example of
China’s fast-rising biotech scene
. But more than that, it’s a test of whether drugmakers there can deliver their advanced therapies to millions of people outside the richest countries in the world — and maybe, over time, those wealthier ones as well.
Murthy’s son received Lantu’s therapy through an early-access program while the treatment undergoes clinical trials.
“We will show the world that there is a better, more responsible, and economically more sensible way of drug development,” Lantu CEO Austin Gao said in an email.
In a statement, Novartis said Zolgensma is approved in 60 countries and that the company is “working to overcome any access challenges.” More than 5,000 patients across the globe have been treated, but the company declined to provide a breakdown of their nationalities.
Families affected by spinal muscular atrophy are yearning for a company — any company — to make a more obtainable gene therapy.
“What’s the point of a life-saving medication if it can only be accessed by a select few?” Murthy asked.
Spinal muscular atrophy is the
leading genetic cause of infant death
. In wealthier countries, change is afoot.
In the US, the condition is now screened for at birth in all 50 states. In 2023, some
70% of patients
had received one of the three treatments on the market, according to the nonprofit Cure SMA.
Novartis has justified Zolgensma’s multimillion-dollar price tag by arguing it’s the only curative, one-time therapy for the disease, and it replaces a lifetime of chronic, expensive care. The company has also highlighted research and development expenses, though critics say the cost is disproportionately high and doesn’t reflect
public investment
in the science behind the therapy.
Either way, payers in countries like the US, Australia and Japan, while balking at the price of Zolgensma, have negotiated coverage or reimbursement schemes that have made the medicine available to some families.
But the Murthy family represents a far different reality for much of the rest of the world.
It’s estimated that
one in 10,000 babies
in India is born with spinal muscular atrophy. When Aryan was born, he wasn’t tested for the condition.
It took until he was a toddler for symptoms to emerge: He could sit independently, had good neck control and could take a few supported steps, but he struggled to progress beyond that.
Last year, Aryan was diagnosed with the second most severe form of the disease, known as Type 2. If nothing was done, the deadly trajectory was clear: Aryan would struggle to move his limbs, to swallow and eventually to breathe.
While India is a manufacturing hub for medicines, families often can’t afford essential treatments in a
fragmented health landscape
.
The Murthy family has private insurance, which didn’t cover Zolgensma — a dynamic that may not change anytime soon, despite a recent milestone.
India’s top drug regulator approved Zolgensma in August, which will end the costly process of importing the drug. But it still may only be available to the wealthiest families.
A spokesperson for Novartis said the company hasn’t announced a price, but that the company is now in conversation with payers. It will be an uphill battle. Among private and public Indian payers, expensive rare disease treatments are typically considered a lower priority.
“Unless Novartis offers a significantly lower price — or other companies enter the market with more affordably priced options — I do not see a likely future where most patients will be able to access the drug,” said Melissa Barber, an expert on drug pricing in worldwide markets and postdoctoral fellow at the Yale School of Medicine.
In addition, families afflicted by spinal muscular atrophy were dismayed when, late last year, Novartis cited “the treatment landscape progressing”
in ending a worldwide lottery program
that provided Zolgensma for free to a limited number of patients.
While holding out hope for Zolgensma, Murthy paid about $54,000 for a yearly supply of Risdiplam, a Roche drug that increases the production of a key protein that those with SMA are deficient in, due to a genetic mutation. The daily medication improved his son’s symptoms.
Long-term, Murthy doubted whether he could continue to afford it. Zolgensma beckoned as not just a one-time solution, but clinical data suggested that it would prove superior in blunting Aryan’s disease. After Murthy’s crowdfunding campaign came up well short, he shared his plight with friends who are doctors, who connected him to Lantu Biopharma.
While it would be accessible, he had to weigh whether his son should be infused with a relatively unproven therapy, from a relatively unknown company.
Lantu was founded in 2020 in Guangzhou, China, to develop “lifesaving drugs for everyone in every corner of the world that needs them,” said Gao, the CEO. He declined to provide information on the company’s fundraising and its number of employees.
Lantu has been assisted by Bruce Lahn, a prominent geneticist and the chief scientific officer of VectorBuilder, a Chicago company that specializes in designing and manufacturing gene therapy vectors. Lahn declined to comment.
Murthy was comforted by his conversations with the company and early data.
“Only once we were 100% sure that it’s genuine, we went ahead,” Murthy said.
Lantu’s therapy, called Vesemnogene lantuparvovec, works in a similar way to Zolgensma. It uses a harmless virus, called AAV9, as a delivery vehicle to carry a healthy copy of the SMN1 gene into cells. Once inside, the gene helps the cells make the SMN1 protein that children with SMA lack.
In theory, it would be possible to make a copycat version of Zolgensma. While Vesemnogene lantuparvovec and Zolgensma appear similar, Lantu insisted its therapy is distinctive.
“Our team has devoted considerable time to understanding spinal-muscular atrophy and devising improved gene therapy approaches specifically for this condition. As a result, our therapy incorporates numerous distinctive design features,” Gao said.
Lantu is testing Vesemnogene lantuparvovec in gene therapy trials in China. Outside the country, the company has an early-access program, provided that families cover manufacturing costs that run about $125,000, according to interviews with Murthy and other parents.
The money that Murthy crowdfunded was just enough to participate. Gao said the program is run by local partners through technology transfer agreements, in the hope that the approach will allow regulatory approval and distribution in low- and middle-income countries. He added that these local entities, which he declined to name, share Lantu’s mission and were vetted for their technical capabilities.
“Given that these local entities operate in their own countries following their own regulatory requirements and medical and cultural practices, we are unable to have full knowledge regarding how they conduct their clinical programs for their own local approval and distribution,” Gao said.
One place the early-access program can be found: Indonesia, where the Murthy family traveled to in May.
Teck-Onn Lim, a doctor who oversaw the infusion of Aryan’s medicine at Tzu Chi Hospital, said outside accountability was provided by the hospital’s ethics review board. Asked about regulatory oversight, Lim didn’t know the name of the government body that approved the program, nor its criteria.
After being injected with Vesemnogene lantuparvovec, Aryan didn’t experience any major side effects. Since then, his parents have seen striking gains.
Aryan’s motor skills, which were in decline, have improved. It’s easier for him to do what he loves: draw, paint and write. He can move from lying down to sitting up on his own, and stand from a chair while holding on for support. Most recently, he managed to walk for about 20 seconds – roughly 20 to 25 steps – while grasping just one of his father’s fingers for balance.
“He wants to walk, he wants to run,” Murthy said.
Because it has only been a few months, Murthy is hopeful that his son will make further progress.
“We are there 75% to 80%. There’s still some distance to go. We are hopeful that we will get very close to 100%,” Murthy said.
The family’s experience echoes a Phase 1, uncontrolled study with 16 patients. Vesemnogene lantuparvovec improved motor function, according to
a preprint
that was published in August. In that study, the therapy was generally well tolerated.
Four patients had respiratory tract infections. One child with severe disease died, an outcome investigators attributed to the natural course of spinal muscular atrophy rather than the treatment.
The results of further clinical testing will determine whether the therapy is effective and safe enough to seek regulatory approval in various places.
Other Chinese companies working on Zolgensma alternatives include Exegenesis Bio, Skyline Therapeutics and GeneCradle.
GeneCradle is in a Phase 3 study and aims to obtain approval by late 2026 or early 2027 in China. Eventually, the company wants to reach more of the globe, with a therapy priced less than Zolgensma, according to a company spokesperson.
Outside China, US gene therapy pioneer Jim Wilson and his company, GemmaBio, struck up a partnership with Abu Dhabi’s government to produce more obtainable gene therapies, including for spinal muscular atrophy.
China has been a particular hotbed for this type of research, and not just because of its broader biotech boom. The country has a large rare disease population
underserved by current treatments
, a state prioritization of these conditions and advanced AAV manufacturing capabilities.
Several Chinese companies, like Legend Biotech, have brought cancer drugs to the world, though the country still hasn’t achieved a global gene therapy for a rare disorder.
Murthy is thankful that more options are starting to emerge.
“We never look at him as just a disease. He’s our son after all. We always tried to give him support,” he said.