CAN SEKAR KATHIRESAN KILL HEART ATTACKS?

Early results of the researcher's path-breaking gene editing treatment to permanently reduce cholesterol and prevent heart attacks have been mixed

- N. Madhavan madhavan

Dr Sekar Kathiresan, co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Boston-based D Verve Therapeutics hails from a family that is genetically prone to heart attacks. Myocardial infarctions, as heart attacks are medically known, cause 32% of all deaths worldwide, and claimed the lives of his grandmother, uncle, and elder brother. His father, too, had suffered a heart attack but survived. It was this constant threat that drove the India-born doctor to become a cardiologist. Sek, as he is referred to by friends and colleagues, completed his medical studies in 1997. Not content with just treating cardiovascular disease (CVD), he immersed himself into genetics, in the hope of finding a way to prevent heart attacks.

In 2018, Sekar co-founded Verve Therapeutics with the goal of finding a way to permanently lower cholesterol. He aims to do this in a very different and more effective way-meaning, no more daily pills, constant monitoring of risk factors, or periodic hospital visits. The clinical stage startup is in the process of developing a single-dose gene-editing drug that will try to switch off the gene in the liver that causes elevated levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C).

"Verve was born out of the deep conviction that cholesterol can be lowered permanently," Sekar, 52, told Mint in a telephonic conversation from Boston in the early hours.

On 12 November, Verve released its first early-stage human trial data. The next day the company's stock was hammered on the bourses, crashing 40% to $8.66 on the Nasdaq. The results of the clinical trial, which analysts perceived as underwhelming, were the reason for the carnage.