Intellia Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTLA) rose sharply in Monday trading. Intellia Therapeutics and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: REGN) today announced positive interim data from an ongoing Phase 1 clinical study of their lead in vivo genome editing candidate, NTLA-2001, which is being developed as a single-dose treatment for transthyretin (ATTR) amyloidosis.
The Phase 1 study, run by Intellia as the program’s development and commercialization lead, is evaluating NTLA-2001 in people living with hereditary transthyretin amyloidosis with polyneuropathy (ATTRv-PN). NTLA-2001 is the first CRISPR/Cas9-based therapy candidate to be administered systemically, via intravenous infusion, for precision editing of a gene in a target tissue in humans.
NTLA-2001 is designed to inactivate the TTR gene in liver cells to prevent the production of misfolded transthyretin (TTR) protein, which accumulates in tissues throughout the body and causes the debilitating and often fatal complications of ATTR amyloidosis. The interim data were presented today at the 2021 Peripheral Nerve Society (PNS) Annual Meeting and published in The New England Journal of Medicine .
“These are the first ever clinical data suggesting that we can precisely edit target cells within the body to treat genetic disease with a single intravenous infusion of CRISPR. The interim results support our belief that NTLA-2001 has the potential to halt and reverse the devastating complications of ATTR amyloidosis with a single dose,” said Intellia CEO John Leonard.
NTLA shares ballooned $43.41, or 48.9%, to $132.24.