Health Expert: How to Reduce Treatment Cost for Sickle Cell

Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja 

A public health specialist from the US has said Nigerians can access treatment for the dreaded sickle cell at an affordable rate using the gene therapy regimen.

According to the National Demographic Survey of 2018, “between 1.5 to 3 percent of Nigerians across the different geopolitical zones had sickle cell disease. On average, about 2 percent. We are looking at 4 million persons with sickle cell disease.”

Although there have been innovative solutions to resolving health crisis associated with sickle cell in recent times, but the prohibitive cost appears to be preventing many from accessing it.

Speaking in an interview with journalists in Abuja, a Professor at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School in the United States and the co-founder of the Global Gene therapy Initiatives, Prof. Jennifer Adair, said it is possible to scale down treatment cost for sickle cell in line with the local economy.

For instance, she said that it costs $2.2 million for a patient to undergo gene therapy treatment in the US.

However, Adair said recent findings have shown the cost of gene therapy treatment can be scaled down in line with the local economy.

She said that the drug components manufactured locally can reduce its cost and make treatment more affordable.

Adair said that a lot of efforts are currently being made to reduce the cost of gene therapy.

Her words: “In the United States, we use something called a value-based pricing system. It reflects what the market can bear and also the value that the therapy adds to the patient and to society. We have to look at the economic factors that go into that price in the U.S. and scale them for the local economy.

“We have been doing research over the last five years for how best to approach this. We have developed a cost-effectiveness strategy in Uganda that will be part of new research that I will highlight briefly today in our session and also will be a publication in the scientific literature in the next few months.

“What we found is that if you take the gene therapy that Jimmy received, which costs $2.2 million right now in the U.S., and you scale that for the local economy in Uganda, you get something that is just as cost-effective if it costs about $40,000 U.S. in the Uganda setting, so there’s a big scaling there.

“Now, $40,000 U.S. is still a lot of money. We don’t think that will be the ultimate price, but it’s a starting point that could be leveraged to give access to the patients who are most ill who could most benefit from something like this gene therapy now to help implement the clinical research and the access for patients moving forward”. 

Speaking on the efficacy of the gene therapy, Chief of the Division of Hematology at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in the U.S, Dr. Alexis Thompson, said between 90 percent and 94 percent of individuals who have undergone these treatments were pain-free.

“They were pain-free for an extended period of time. So, the first patient that I treated with one of the approaches that was approved is now 11 years out, and she has been completely healthy this whole time. We see her once a year for evaluation,” she said.

A Nigerian cured of Sickle Cell Disease through Gene therapy: Mr. Jimi Olaghere, gave his testimony narrating how he was fortunate to participate in a CRISPR-based gene therapy that has completely changed his life.

Olaghere said: “I’ve traveled around the world telling my story, but this is the most important destination where I feel like my story needs to be heard because this is where I’m from. 

“So, I’m just really excited to come here, to come home, and really show the community the impact of these gene therapies and just curative therapies across the board”.