After gene therapy deaths, Astellas tries potentially safer approach

Astellas Pharma stated Thursday it’s going to license and develop a brand new gene remedy for a devastating muscle dysfunction, after 4 boys died in a medical trial testing an earlier therapy.

The hope is that the brand new remedy will enable researchers to deal with the illness, referred to as X-linked myotubular myopathy, or XLMTM, with a lot decrease doses of the viruses used to shuttle genes into sufferers’ cells. In idea that ought to reduce the chance of extreme uncomfortable side effects.

“The decrease the dose we give, the decrease the chance goes to be,” stated Alan Beggs, the Boston Youngsters’s Hospital researcher who helped develop the sooner therapy and is a scientific co-founder of the startup behind the brand new drug.