“As the first patient dosed with a Beam therapeutic candidate and the first patient in the U.S. to receive a base editing therapeutic, this represents a major milestone for the company, the scientists that made this possible, and the patients we hope to serve,” said John Evans, chief executive officer of Beam. “We believe that the full therapeutic potential of CAR-T therapies, including the ability to utilize an allogeneic source of T cells, will only be unlocked through higher levels of cellular engineering enabled by multiple simultaneous genetic edits. Base editing is especially well-suited to this challenge, as it is designed to deliver highly efficient multiplex edits in cells without the double stranded breaks that can lead to frequent chromosomal rearrangements and loss of cell viability. BEAM-201, to our knowledge the first quadruplex-edited cell therapy candidate in clinical development, is an allogeneic CAR-T cell investigational therapy with the potential to make a substantial impact for patients diagnosed with challenging T-cell cancers who have limited treatment options.”
