Alipogene tiparvovec: gene therapy for lipoprotein lipase deficiency

Homozygous lipoprotein lipase (LPL) deficiency is an ultra-orphan disease associated with increased rates of pancreatitis. Current treatments based on acute plasmapheresis allied with ultra-low fat diets are inadequate as responses to fibrates or other triglyceride-lowering therapies tend to be poor. Alipogene tiparvovec is an adeno-associated virus type I (AAV1) gene therapy using a hyper-functional LPL serine(447)-stop (S447X) insert administered intramuscularly under general anaesthetic with allied immunosuppression. Treatment results in histological muscle expression of LPL allied with a transient 40% reduction in triglycerides and improvements in postprandial chylomicron triglyceride content. Alipogene tiparvovec is the first possibly curative treatment for LPL deficiency.