Beyond Coronavirus: Moderna Teams Up With Vertex on Cystic Fibrosis Therapy

All eyes are on Moderna's (NASDAQ: MRNA) coronavirus vaccine, but the biotech is looking ahead, setting up a new research collaboration with Vertex Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: VRTX) to develop a treatment for cystic fibrosis, which is Vertex's specialty.

This is actually the companies' second collaboration to tackle cystic fibrosis. The first project involved using Moderna's messenger RNA (mRNA) technology to express the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) protein, which is mutated in patients with cystic fibrosis.

The newest project seems a little more ambitious, but could be a one-time treatment for cystic fibrosis. Instead of expressing CFTR from mRNA, the companies plan to use Moderna's messenger RNAs delivered with its lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) to express gene-editing proteins that would edit the patients' DNA so the lung cells express functional CFTR protein.

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Source Fool.com