Google To Spend Billions Developing Gene Therapy For Heart Disease

Alphabet, Inc., the parent company of Google, plans to develop a life-long gene therapy for heart disease, the leading cause of death for men and women in the U.S.



Attaining this lofty goal will be the job of Alphabet’s gene-editing start-up, Verve Therapeutics, and Google's life science start-up, Verily.

This month, Google's venture fund, GV, partnered with three other funds to launch Verve Therapeutics with $58.5 million in Series A funding. The company’s scientific founders include Dr. Sekar Kathiresan (CEO), Dr. Kiran Musunuru (chief scientific adviser) and Dr. J. Keith Joung (strategic adviser).

Based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Verve will focus on using CRISPR and gene-editing techniques to treat coronary artery and cardiovascular disease.

Gene editing has the potential to completely transform the treatment paradigm for the disease,” said Musunuru. “Preclinical studies conducted in the field, including work done in my lab, have shown the promise of gene editing to safely reduce cholesterol and other coronary artery disease risk factors.”

Verve has already validated the efficacy of gene-editing approaches, including CRISPR, to safely reduce cholesterol in the lab.

It’s already licensed CRISPR patents, including Cas9 and Cas12a (Cpf1) from the Broad Institute and Harvard University. It also has a strategic collaboration deal with Beam Therapeutics.

Under this deal, Verve gains exclusive access to Beam’s base editing, gene-editing, and delivery technologies for human therapeutic applications against cardiovascular targets. Once Phase I trials are completed, Beam can participate in future development and commercialization and share 50 percent of profits and losses for any product directed against those targets. They will also collaborate on delivery technologies.

Verve’s partnership with Verily will see it use the latter’s nanoparticle screening platform to develop and optimize new gene-editing delivery systems.



Figure A is an overview of a heart and coronary artery showing damage (dead heart muscle) caused by a heart attack. Figure B is a cross-section of the coronary artery with plaque buildup and a blood clot. U.S. National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute

“Coronary artery disease is a true pandemic and a growing health crisis,” said Dr. Kathiresan.

“Our genetic understanding of coronary artery disease, combined with increasing sophistication of gene editing technologies, have aligned to create a transformative moment in the treatment of this disease. Verve was founded to turn the tide of coronary artery disease worldwide. Gene editing offers the possibility of introducing protective gene variants to adults at risk of the disease through a one-time therapy.”

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