Clinic in Florida is first in Southeast to offer gene therapy for fragile skin

Zevaskyn (prademagene zamikeracel), a gene therapy approved in the U.S. last year to treat the fragile skin disease recessive dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa (RDEB), can now be administered at University of Florida Health, a university-affiliated clinic in Gainesville.

That’s according to Abeona Therapeutics, the company that markets Zevaskyn, which announced this week that UF Health had been activated as a qualified treatment center (QTC) for Zevaskyn administration, done via a surgical procedure. The cell therapy is used to aid wound healing in children and adults with RDEB, a genetic condition that causes the skin to be very fragile, tearing and blistering easily when touched.

“The University of Florida Health is now the sole treatment center for Zevaskyn across the Southeastern United States,” Michael Lavery, MD, clinical assistant professor at the University of Florida and director of the university’s Epidermolysis Bullosa Multidisciplinary Clinic, said in a press release from Abeona. It’s one of eight in the U.S. that can administer Zevaskyn.

The clinic has already started identifying and onboarding RDEB patients, per the release.

“UF Health is widely recognized for its leadership in dermatology and multidisciplinary patient care,” said Madhav Vasanthavada, PhD, chief commercial officer at Abeona. “We are excited to partner with them to bring this innovative gene therapy to eligible children and adult patients in need.”

Vasanthavada added: “Activation of UF Health as a QTC represents an important step in expanding access to Zevaskyn for patients living with RDEB in Florida and the Southeastern United States.”

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Zevaskyn was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in April 2025 to treat the severe skin wounds that occur in people with RDEB, a type of epidermolysis bullosa. People with this group of rare diseases are sometimes said to have butterfly skin because of their skin’s fragility.

In the clinical trials that supported the therapy’s approval, use of Zevaskyn was shown to improve wound healing and ease pain.

Center is first in Southeastern US to offer Zevaskyn

UF Health is now the eighth QTC cleared to administer Zevaskyn. The other centers are:

• Stanford Medicine Children’s Health in Palo Alto, California
• Children’s Hospital Colorado in Aurora
• the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago in Illinois
• NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York City
• Cincinnati Children’s in Ohio
• Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania
• the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston

UF Health is now collaborating with Abeona to support treatment access for adults and children with RDEB.

“Zevaskyn brings together the expertise of our Pediatric Surgery and Burn teams and highlights the collaborative care model that defines UF Health,” said Shawn Larson, MD, professor and chief of the division of pediatric surgery at UF. “We are proud to partner with Abeona Therapeutics to expand access to specialized treatment for patients with epidermolysis bullosa.”

This new gene therapy expands the treatment [arsenal] for managing epidermolysis bullosa, with the goal of improving skin healing and patient quality of life.

RDEB is caused by mutations in the COL7A1 gene, which provides instructions to make part of a structural protein called type VII collagen. People with RDEB produce little to no functional type VII collagen, resulting in abnormally fragile skin and wounds that don’t heal well.

Zevaskyn treatment involves collecting a patient’s skin cells and engineering them to express a healthy version of the COL7A1 gene, thus facilitating the production of functional type VII collagen protein. The modified skin cells are grown on sheets that are implanted over a patient’s wounds to promote healing.

“This new gene therapy expands the treatment [arsenal] for managing epidermolysis bullosa, with the goal of improving skin healing and patient quality of life,” Lavery said.