Verve Therapeutics stock crashed Monday as safety concerns plagued its gene-editing approach to genetically high cholesterol. VERV stock lost more than a third of its value.
Verve tested its drug in patients with heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia, an inherited disease that causes lifelong high LDL cholesterol. This increases the risk of cardiovascular disease. A single dose of Verve's drug reduced LDL cholesterol by up to 55%.
But two patients experienced severe side effects. One died of cardiac arrest five weeks following treatment. Another had a heart attack the day following treatment. Investigators said the latter is possibly related to Verve's treatment. But Verve noted the patient experienced chest pain prior to treatment, and hadn't told the study investigators.
RBC Capital Markets analyst Luca Issi noted the patient had a history of heart problems.
"The patient had multiple prior (heart attacks) and coronary angiography showed in-stent restenosis lesions," he said in a report to clients. "On the stock, we would not be surprised to see some volatility, but we remain buyers given impressive (effectiveness)."
On today's stock market, VERV stock plummeted 40.8% to 9.29.
VERV Stock: In Line With Other Drugs
Verve tested a total of nine patients. Six received low doses that Verve calls sub-therapeutic. This means these won't be the doses it seeks for the Food and Drug Administration to approve. It also tested two potentially therapeutic doses. Both are higher.
The gene-editing drug targets PCSK9, a protein tied to high LDL cholesterol.
Two patients at a potentially therapeutic dose experienced PCSK9 reductions of 59% and 84%. At the highest potentially therapeutic dose, one patient had a 47% decline in the problematic protein.
Bullishly for VERV stock, lowering the protein levels also led to decreases in LDL cholesterol. At the lower therapeutic dose, patients had LDL cholesterol reductions of 39% and 48%. The highest dose led to a 55% reduction in LDL.
Importantly, the LDL cholesterol reductions have remained intact for six months.
RBC's Issi notes other treatments for high cholesterol lead to similar reductions. Novartis' Leqvio lowers LDL by 40%. Other drugs lead to 42% to 62% reductions. But those are all chronic approaches to high cholesterol.
"We continue to like a one-and-done approach that can solve compliance," he said.
He has a buy rating on VERV stock.
Follow Allison Gatlin on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, at @IBD_AGatlin.
