Blue­bird forced to halt tri­als af­ter a can­cer-like case, pulls gene ther­a­pies from Eu­rope fol­low­ing pric­ing back­lash — shares slammed

Blue­bird bio halt­ed a tri­al for its gene ther­a­py for a rare neu­ro­log­i­cal dis­ease af­ter find­ing that the treat­ment like­ly caused a can­cer-like con­di­tion in one pa­tient, the com­pa­ny an­nounced Mon­day.

A boy with cere­bral adrenoleukody­s­tro­phy was di­ag­nosed with myelodys­plas­tic syn­drome, a con­di­tion that can de­vel­op in­to leukemia, af­ter re­ceiv­ing eli-cel, a gene ther­a­py that the com­pa­ny has shown can of­ten halt the fa­tal dis­or­der and which they had planned to file for US ap­proval lat­er this year. Two oth­er pa­tients are al­so be­ing mon­i­tored for sim­i­lar symp­toms, and the FDA has put a clin­i­cal hold on eli-cel tri­als.

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.

SIGN UP LOG IN BECOME A PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER