Breakthrough therapies at Stanford are saving lives. Can we afford them?

Harnessing the body’s own cells to fight disease, long a medical dream, is finally a reality.

Now comes the bill.

Last month, Stanford became the first hospital in the nation to use a new $515,000 cell therapy to treat a patient with advanced melanoma. A related approach, costing $420,000 to $475,000, is offering hope to patients with lethal blood cancers.

Meanwhile, cells fixed by gene therapy can slow, even stop, the progression of intractable diseases like sickle cell or beta thalassemia ...