The Guardian view on gene editing: breakthroughs need a new social contract | Editorial

Key Highlights

• Britain must build NHS capacity so that cures become collective goods, not expensive productsJust a small fraction of our 20,000 genes can cause disease when disrupted – yet that sliver accounts for thousands of rare disorders.
• The difficulty is: what can a doctor do to treat them?
• In a common condition such as type 2 diabetes, the underlying biology is similar for millions of patients.
• The doctor can prescribe metformin.
• But with a genetic disorder, the mutation might only affect a small number of people worldwide.