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.
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