STAT+: ARPA-H launches $160 million effort to develop custom gene editing drugs — SkimNews
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- ARPA-H announced Thursday it will spend up to $160 million to advance custom gene editing treatments for a slate of rare diseases through a new program called THRIVE.
- THRIVE will fund seven different teams, each pursuing conditions affecting different organ systems, according to the agency.
- Every THRIVE-backed team faces a deadline of launching clinical trials by year three of the program.
- Some participating teams could begin clinical testing well ahead of the three-year mark, the agency indicated.
- ARPA-H is described in the announcement as the U.S.' 'moonshot' agency for health research.
Why it matters: ARPA-H, the federal government's health-research 'moonshot' agency, is committing up to $160 million and a three-year clinical-trial clock to seven teams attempting to translate custom gene editing from rare-disease labs into actual trials — a concrete test of whether bespoke gene medicines can move faster than the standard drug-development timeline.
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