Never give up, says Michelle as she wins life-saver medication

A WOMAN who fights for every breath has won the chance to save her life with miracle drugs from pharmaceuticals giant Vertex.

Cystic fibrosis sufferer Michelle Bamber, 37, struggles with only a fifth of her lungs working.

Despite qualifying for the US company’s compassionate-use scheme, she has twice been refused Trikafta.

The Daily Express revealed Michelle’s battle a fortnight ago – and this week we told how CF sufferer Ayden Cochrane, 13, died waiting for the wonder drug.

But Vertex have finally approved Michelle for Trikafta – and will get a batch to her as soon as possible.

From her bed at London’s Royal

Brompton Hospital last night, she tweeted: “Words cannot express how I feel right now. Here’s to never giving up.” And she posed with a sign thanking the efforts of the Daily Express.

Her husband Simon, 42, of Farningham, Kent, added: “We are shell-shocked and delighted.

“It is a huge weight off our shoulders. I can only thank the Daily Express for their campaigning and Vertex for agreeing to give Michelle its Trikafta.

“I rang her with the news and she was in tears. But now we can think towards the future.

“It could not come at a better time as

Michelle has been suffering with flu-like symptoms. If she achieves the average improvement from Trikafta, it would be like turning the clock back four years when she was healthy enough to work.”

Vertex agreed last October to an NHS deal to supply CF drugs Orkambi and Symkevi but Michelle cannot take them.

Trikafta is not EU licensed so the only way anyone in the UK can obtain it is via the compassionate-use facility.

Over Christmas, the Daily Express helped dying Nicole Adams, 28, to get Trikafta. She is now back at home in Belfast. Michelle combined a banking career with hospital visits four times a year. But she then suffered lung collapses, leaving her gravely ill.