Sikandar Bakht felt like his life was falling apart, when his two-year-old daughter Amyra was diagnosed with Mucopolysaccharidosis type I (MPS 1), a progressive multisystem disorder. MPS1, also known as Hurler syndrome, can affect the brain, heart valves, spine and eyes.
Bakht, a Pakistani cricket commentator from Karachi, brought her to Narayana Health City in Bengaluru, where she underwent a bone marrow transplant. He donated his bone marrow and saved her life.
The bone marrow transplant team at Narayana Health has more reasons to rejoice. Manas Shalini Mukund, one of their bone marrow transplant survivor has come out with a memoir titled ‘It’s Not That Hard’. Mukund gives a poignant account of his tryst with destiny in the book.
Narayana Health has become the first health provider in the country to have performed 2,000 bone marrow transplants.
“Heart and cancer treatments are among the most expensive treatments for common man. We are trying to democratise heart and cancer care. Every Indian should be able to afford these, if need be,” said Dr Devi Prasad Shetty, cardiac surgeon and chairman and founder of Narayana Health.
Narayana Health offers in-house facility for CAR-T cell therapy. Immuneel Therapeutics Private Limited in Narayana Health City aims at making CAR-T cells affordable to the masses. “Immuneel is the only hospital-based immunotherapy centre that produces CAR-T cells,” said Shetty.
CAR-T cell therapy is one of the most innovative and promising treatment for most of the cancers. “I am extremely excited with the way patients are responding to the treatment. However, it costs millions in the US, ”said Shetty. “We often think we cannot have such technologies in India. We tend to depend on the west to give us the final product at exorbitant price. Or we wait long enough so that it becomes inexpensive. But, by that time, many lives would be lost,” he said.
