ZOOM CALLS are rarely matters of life and death. But on April 3rd one such meeting carried grave consequences for 33 children in England with a form of Batten disease, a rare degenerative brain disorder. For hours a committee of health experts and economists pored over spreadsheets, weighing the benefits of Brineura, an enzyme therapy. Brineura slows the disease’s progress, but has a list price of £523,000 ($673,000) per patient a year. The task was to decide whether the drug provides enough value for money for the National Health Service (NHS) to keep funding it (untreated, children rarely make it past the age of 12 and lose the ability to walk, talk and swallow). One parent put it bluntly: “You’re putting a value on a child’s life.”