The information: There’s a new most costly drug ever—a gene remedy that prices as a lot as a Brooklyn brownstone or a Miami mansion, and greater than the common individual will earn in a lifetime. Lenmeldy is a gene remedy for metachromatic leukodystrophy (MLD) and was accepted within the US on Monday. Its maker, Orchard Therapeutics, says the $4.25 million wholesale value displays the worth the remedy has for sufferers and households.
Why it issues: MLD is a nerve dysfunction that strikes toddlers, shortly robbing them of their potential to talk and stroll. Round half die, the others stay on in a vegetative state. But it surely’s extremely uncommon, affecting solely round 40 youngsters a 12 months within the US. The acute rarity of such ailments is what’s behind the hovering price-tags of latest gene therapies, and why promoting the most recent DNA remedy might be a shaky enterprise. Learn the complete story.
—Antonio Regalado
New York Metropolis’s plan to cease e-bike battery fires
Stroll only a few blocks in New York Metropolis and also you’ll seemingly spot an electrical bike zipping by. They’ve change into more and more widespread in recent times, particularly amongst supply drivers. However the e-bike inflow has induced a wave of fires sparked by their batteries, a few of them lethal.
Now, town desires to battle these fires with battery swapping. A pilot program will present a small variety of supply drivers with various choices to energy up their e-bikes, together with swapping stations that offer totally charged batteries on demand.
Proponents say this system might lay the groundwork for a brand new mode of powering small electrical autos within the metropolis, one which’s handy and will cut back the chance of fires. However the highway to fireplace security will seemingly be lengthy and winding given the sheer variety of batteries we’re integrating into our day by day lives, in e-bikes and past. Learn the complete story.
