Verve won tri­al suc­cess with a gene-edit­ing mile­stone. Why don't in­vestors like it?

This week­end, Verve Ther­a­peu­tics pre­sent­ed the first-ever re­sults of an in vi­vo base edit­ing ther­a­py in hu­mans, mark­ing a ma­jor mile­stone not on­ly for the com­pa­ny but al­so for the gene edit­ing field as a whole. But on Mon­day morn­ing, the biotech’s stock tum­bled 40% over ques­tions about the treat­ment’s po­ten­tial to lead a mar­ket.

“The Verve da­ta are tru­ly a ma­jor sci­en­tif­ic mile­stone that is part of a new fron­tier of med­i­cine,” said John Maraganore, the for­mer CEO of RNA ther­a­peu­tics com­pa­ny Al­ny­lam. “But some­times mar­kets don’t ap­pre­ci­ate that as much.”

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