Deal Struck Over New Drug For Rare Spine Disease

The government has reached an agreement with a pharmaceutical company to import new drugs to treat the rare spinal cord disease, spinal muscular atrophy (SMA).

The Chief Executive Carrie Lam herself revealed this on Thursday morning when she visited Josy Chow, a SMA victim whose plight had made headlines last year.

The 23-year-old, who's almost completely paralysed, had written a 22-page proposal to Lam, urging the government to help make the new drugs available to people like her who suffer from rare diseases.

Lam said the drug will be available in Hong Kong in about two months' time and it will initially be made available to SMA patients for free, as Chow had suggested in her proposal.

After the drug is registered for sale, it will be made available through the government's subsidised programme for rare disease drugs.