First gene therapy drug sets price record

The Western world's first gene therapy drug is set to go on sale in Germany with a 1.1 million euro ($1.4 million) price tag, a record for a medicine to treat a rare disease.

The sky-high cost of Glybera, from Dutch biotech firm UniQure and its Italian marketing partner Chiesi, shows how therapies to fix faulty genes may upend the conventional pharmaceutical business model.

After a quarter century of experiments and several setbacks, gene therapy is finally throwing a lifeline to patients by inserting corrective genes into malfunctioning cells - but paying for it poses a challenge.