Prime Medicine receives FDA clearance to run first prime editing clinical trial

The FDA has OK’d the first-ever hu­man tri­al of prime edit­ing, Prime Med­i­cine an­nounced Mon­day, open­ing the door for test­ing a new tech­nol­o­gy that back­ers hope will widen the ar­ray of dis­eases that can be treat­ed with gene edit­ing.

Prime’s ex­per­i­men­tal ther­a­py, PM359, is a treat­ment for chron­ic gran­u­lo­ma­tous dis­ease (CGD), a rare ge­net­ic con­di­tion in which phago­cytes — a white blood cell type im­por­tant for fight­ing in­fec­tions — don’t work prop­er­ly. Typ­i­cal­ly di­ag­nosed in ear­ly child­hood, it can cause peo­ple to get se­ri­ous­ly ill from bac­te­ria or fun­gi that nor­mal­ly would cause few or no symp­toms.

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.