Ruadhán Jones
Dr Joseph Meaney A new gene-editing therapy called Casgevy, which is designed to help treat patients suffering from sickle cell disease, has been endorsed by the US-based National Catholic Bioethics Center and its president, Dr Joseph Meaney.
Casgevy is a new gene therapy developed by Vertex Pharmaceuticals that uses CRISPR, a genome-editing technology, to modify a patient’s blood cells and reverse the problems caused by sickle cell disease.
In an interview with EWTN News Nightly anchorwoman Tracy Sabol, Dr Meaney called the new therapy, which is the first of its kind to receive FDA approval, “groundbreaking” and said that from a Catholic perspective it “is a very licit therapy” that “hopefully will be effective”
“The Church has said since Donum Vitae really that gene therapies can be acceptable as long as they’re strictly therapeutic. That is to say that gene therapy is used to treat a genetic disease,” Dr Meaney explained.
He noted that while there “are other people out there who want to do gene therapies to do human enhancement”, such as through “germline” gene editing that targets the reproductive cells in the body to design babies with preferred traits, that is not the case with Casgevy.
“This current therapy is actually for individuals 12 years old and older and will affect a very serious disease and try to cure them,” Dr Meaney explained.
Casgevy is a new treatment for sickle cell disease, a blood disorder caused by a genetic mutation that damages the red blood cells, causing them to take on a sickle-like shape that ends up restricting blood flow and limiting oxygen delivery to the body.
The result is severe pain, organ damage, life-threatening disabilities, and ultimately the possibility of death.
Because of the need for effective sickle cell treatment, the FDA expedited Casgevy’s development and gave it priority review. The therapy received FDA approval for ages 12 and up.
Dr Meaney said the newly FDA-approved gene treatments do not present any such moral qualms and that the primary ethical concern for these therapies is whether the benefits outweigh the costs.
In the Catholic understanding, Dr Meaney explained, “the proportion of benefits and possible side effects” need to be examined in every therapy.