Verve Therapeutics falls 37% after adverse events in VERVE-101 study

Shares of Verve Therapeutics are moving lower after the company announced first human proof-of-concept data for in vivo base editing from the ongoing heart-1 Phase 1b clinical trial of VERVE-101. The company said treatment with VERVE-101 led to dose-dependent reductions of disease-causing low-density lipoprotein cholesterol in people living with heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia. However, two patients experienced serious adverse events, which were each cardiovascular events in the context of severe underlying accelerated atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, Verve said in a statement. One patient dosed in the 0.3 mg/kg cohort had a fatal cardiac arrest approximately five weeks after treatment due to underlying ischemic heart disease, which was determined by the investigator and independent data and safety monitoring board to be not related to treatment, according to Verve. One patient dosed in the 0.45 mg/kg cohort experienced a myocardial infarction the day after treatment. The event was considered potentially related to treatment due to the proximity to dosing. Shares of Verve Therapeutics are down 37% to $9.84 in premarket trading.