Pfizer Stock Hit After Boy Dies Of Cardiac Arrest During Gene Therapy Trial

Stock in Pfizer dropped on Tuesday after a young boy receiving experimental gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy died during the trial.

According to STAT News, Pfizer has yet to determine exactly what happened or how the boy died Pfizer has confirmed that the boy suffered cardiac arrest, and is pausing crossing over patients in its randomized phase 3 trial of the treatment in older boys, according to the report. The company will, for now, stop dosing patients who initially received a placebo with the gene therapy after a year.

Pfizer is expected to announce data from the study in the upcoming weeks.

Of note, in 1999 Jesse Gelsinger was the first person publicly identified as having died during a clinical trial for gene therapy – which caused the FDA to shutter human genetic research at Penn’s Institute for Gene Therapy.

Shares in the pharmaceutical giant took an immediate hit on the news.

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