The genetic disease cystic fibrosis (CF) used to be a death sentence, usually in childhood. But thanks to parents who'll stop at nothing to save their children and the researchers who joined them, we're now witnessing a transformative scientific advance.

THE BATTLE TO BREATHE is the uplifting story of the fix many scientists thought impossible.

Telling what one contributor describes as “one of the greatest stories in medicine,” this film chronicles the historic highs and heartbreaking setbacks from CF’s discovery in the 1930s to today, culminating in the approval in 2019 of the groundbreaking treatment, Trikafta.

Now over 90% of people diagnosed with the disease in the USA have the opportunity of utterly transformed lives. If treated early enough, people born today with most CF mutations should expect to live as long as anyone.

CF is the first disease where drugs correct the faulty proteins produced by disease-causing genes, a crucial milestone in the journey toward personalised medicine. This film celebrates the unwavering commitment of CF families, alongside dedicated scientists and doctors working tirelessly to eradicate the disease.

These revolutionary treatments nevertheless remain very costly - effectively out-of-reach in many countries. In 2025, Trikafta’s manufacturer Vertex offered the daily drug free to Egypt where CF patients’ life expectancy is around 8 years. We see Marwan Moheissen, at 25 one of Egypt's oldest CF survivors, make dramatic progress after starting treatment.

As groundbreaking as treatment has been, it still doesn’t work for everybody. Emily Kramer-Golinkoff is among roughly 10% of CF patients who can’t benefit from drugs like Trikafta. Emily shares her experience of the disease, living with her family in isolation while raising millions of dollars to fund new treatment research. But there’s new hope as gene therapy trials show promise, and gene editing could even lead to a universal cure.

THE BATTLE TO BREATHE contributors include scientist and CF sufferer Paul Quinton, who experimented on his own sweat ducts to solve the mystery of the disease’s mechanism; former NIH Director Francis Collins, one of the geneticists who discovered the CF gene; Paul Negulescu, team leader at Vertex Pharmaceuticals who developed the revolutionary new CF drugs; and Bijal P. Trivedi, author of ‘Breath from Salt’.