Europe is nearly on edge for permitting the sale of first gene therapy in market. The drug, Glybera, manufactured by UniQure BV, has been developed to cure an uncommon ailment.

It has been reported that it was today that the Dutch biotechnology company was given the approval from European Medicines Agency for its drug to treat lipoprotein lipase deficiency.

It has been recovered that the approval is the result of 20 years spent on experimentation of the technology. It has been since 1970s that the proposals for the technology were into discussion and had been chosen by several teams of researchers to carry out clinical trials. However, the regulators never approved, yet it was locally practiced in China.

This deficiency restricts the fat in the food to break down, thus leading to severe pain and swelling of the pancreas. It has been reported that the disease is diagnosed in one or two in every million.

The approval of the gene therapy in market has paved way for several such targeted treatments, in which a healthy DNA is inserted in the human body to repair damaged genes.

Tomas Salmonson, the acting Chairman of the agency's committee, said, "The approval signals a fresh success for the European Commission's "orphan drug" policy, which offers 10 years of exclusivity".