Verve pauses lead base editing program after safety event, switches focus to follow-up candidate near clinic

Verve Ther­a­peu­tics is paus­ing work on its lead gene edit­ing treat­ment, which was the first time base edit­ing was used to di­rect­ly al­ter DNA in hu­mans, af­ter a se­ri­ous ad­verse event. The biotech will turn its fo­cus to a sim­i­lar can­di­date with a dif­fer­ent type of lipid de­liv­ery.

The Boston biotech will pause en­roll­ment in its Heart-1 tri­al of VERVE-101 af­ter a pa­tient ex­pe­ri­enced a grade 3 drug-in­duced tran­sient in­crease in serum ala­nine amino­trans­ferase, Verve said be­fore the mar­kets opened on Tues­day. The pa­tient al­so had a grade 3 drug-in­duced throm­bo­cy­tope­nia or low lev­el of platelet in the blood, and the “ab­nor­mal­i­ties re­solved ful­ly with­in a few days,” the drug de­vel­op­er said.

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.