9 February 2022 - For weeks, Julia Vitarello avoided the room in her home. The fairy curtains she sewed. The sheets. The quiet. But one day, she placed her desk by the window. 

There, she began spending long hours on a single-minded mission: advancing custom medicines — and sparing others the pain her family has endured.

Four years ago, Vitarello’s daughter, Mila, was given a drug created just for her, the first time a medicine was specifically tailored to one patient’s genetic disease. The drug, called milasen, halted her rapidly progressing condition and later improved her quality of life. But the disease, already in an advanced stage, eventually resumed its assault. Mila died on 11 February 2021, at 10 years old.

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