Hopes for non-vi­ral gene ther­a­py take a blow as Gen­er­a­tion Bio an­nounces sig­nif­i­cant set­back

Last year, dur­ing the height of the biotech IPO boom, Gen­er­a­tion Bio raised $230 mil­lion on a swing-for-the-fences ap­proach to gene ther­a­py.

Launched out of UMass Med­ical School, the com­pa­ny promised to de­vel­op the world’s first non-vi­ral gene ther­a­py. Such an ap­proach, if proven, could elim­i­nate many of the key hur­dles that have hin­dered the field over the last decade: It would al­low doc­tors to dose pa­tients who have pre-ex­ist­ing im­mu­ni­ty to the virus­es com­mon­ly used to­day, to re­dose a pa­tient if the ther­a­py ever wore off, and to avoid many of the im­mune-re­lat­ed safe­ty con­cerns that have come to the fore over the last 18 months.

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