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At the weekend in Kampala, a piece of news landed that could reshape the future of one of the world’s most neglected diseases.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) had accepted a groundbreaking patent from Dei BioPharma Ltd, a Ugandan biotechnology company led by scientist Dr Matthias Magoola.
The innovation, approved on January 26, 2026, offers a radically different approach to treating sickle cell disease—one designed not only to cure the illness, but to make that cure affordable and accessible to the millions who need it most.
For patients with sickle cell disease, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa where the condition is most common, that promise has long felt out of reach. Sickle cell disease is an inherited blood disorder that causes red blood cells to become rigid and crescent-shaped.
These distorted cells block blood flow, triggering severe pain, infections, organ damage and, too often, shortened lives. An estimated 20 million people worldwide live with the condition, the majority of them in low- and middle-income countries.
In recent years, scientists have shown that sickle cell can be cured through gene therapy. But those treatments – often costing millions of dollars per patient-require highly specialised laboratories, personalised genetic engineering and advanced hospitals.
For most families and public health systems, they remain a distant dream. Dr Magoola believes it does not have to be that way.
“This invention was designed from the beginning to solve not only the biology of sickle cell disease, but also the access problem,” he said.
TURNING BACK THE GENETIC CLOCK
The science behind the breakthrough is rooted in something all humans share. Before birth-and for several months afterward-babies produce a form of oxygen-carrying protein called fetal haemoglobin.
Unlike adult haemoglobin, fetal haemoglobin does not cause red blood cells to sickle. It is only when the body naturally switches to adult haemoglobin, usually around six months of age, that symptoms of sickle cell disease begin to appear.
Rather than trying to repair the defective gene responsible for sickle cell disease in each individual patient, Dei BioPharma’s approach aims to stop that switch from ever happening.
Using CRISPR gene-editing technology, the company targets what Dr Magoola describes as a universal genetic “control switch”—a piece of genetic code that tells the body when to stop producing fetal haemoglobin and start making the adult form.
By disabling this switch, the body continues producing fetal haemoglobin, preventing red blood cells from becoming rigid and misshapen. Crucially, this control switch is the same in all humans.
“By targeting a universal genetic switch rather than the sickle mutation itself, we can develop a single, standardised treatment that works for all patients,” Dr Magoola explained.
That distinction matters. Most existing gene therapies must be customised for each patient, driving up cost and complexity. Dei BioPharma’s platform, by contrast, could be produced at scale—manufactured, stored, distributed and administered in the same way across different populations and health systems.
FROM BOUTIQUE MEDICINE TO PUBLIC HEALTH TOOL
The company estimates that its approach could reduce the cost of gene therapy for sickle cell disease by more than 95 per cent.
If proven safe and effective, that would place curative treatment within reach of public health systems in Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia—regions where sickle cell disease is most prevalent.
The therapy could also be applied across all major forms of the condition, including HbSS, HbSC and sickle beta-thalassemia.
“This opens the door to what could become the first scalable, broadly applicable gene therapy for a single-gene disease,” Dr Magoola said.
Dei BioPharma likens the model to the logic behind generic medicines: standardised products that lower costs and expand access once regulatory approvals are secured. It is a deliberate departure from a pharmaceutical industry that has often prioritised high-income markets.
“Sickle cell disease disproportionately affects populations that have historically been last to benefit from medical innovation,” Dr Magoola said.
“Our objective is to reverse that pattern by making advanced gene therapies manufacturable and affordable at global scale.”
WHAT COMES NEXT
The patent covers the gene-editing tools, delivery methods and therapeutic processes required to keep fetal haemoglobin active. The company is currently conducting preclinical studies to assess safety, durability and effectiveness before moving toward human trials.
Dei BioPharma says it plans to work closely with regulators, research institutions and strategic partners as the platform advances toward clinical development. For Dr Magoola, the breakthrough reflects a broader ambition—to ensure that cutting-edge medicine does not remain the privilege of a few.
“Our commitment has always been to make advanced biological drugs accessible to the more than 90 per cent of people who currently cannot afford them,” he said.
“This innovation brings that goal closer to reality.”
If the science holds, a discovery born in Uganda could help transform the global fight against sickle cell disease—turning a once-inherited sentence into a treatable condition, and perhaps, a curable one.
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