Too Risky to Proceed, Too Beneficial to Shelve: Astellas Pharma's XLMTM Story

For the first two years after Joshua Jacob Gonzalez was born, his parents, Javier and Jessica Gonzalez, sucked saliva from the back of his mouth every five minutes. One missed suction can clog the airway and cause death.

So, a few weeks after treatment, Jessica first noticed it. She nudged Javier, who was sleeping in a chair at the National Institutes of Health, awake. When was the last time he inhaled JJ? They realized an hour had passed and their son was breathing fine.

It was the beginning of a miraculous yet bittersweet chapter for the Gonzaleses.

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