Promising gene therapies pose million-dollar conundrum

Erika Check Hayden, Nature 534, 305–306 (16 June 2016) doi:10.1038/534305a.

Economists, investors and medical insurers can’t figure out how to pay for cutting-edge drugs.
Many of the treatments deliver corrective genes using a modified virus that is considered safer than vectors used in earlier attempts. But many of the target disorders are rare, limiting the population that can be treated. And there are often no previously approved drugs that work similarly, removing the pressure on companies to lower their prices.