Vertex’s sickle cell therapy among October’s advisory committee meetings

FDA has scheduled three advisory committee meetings in October to discuss therapeutic products under review, including a sickle cell therapy that could become the first CRISPR-based medicine to reach the market. It’s unclear, however, if FDA will be able to hold the meetings in the event of a government shutdown.

The committee meeting for gene-edited stem cell therapy exagamglogene autotemcel (exa-cel) from Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:VRTX) and CRISPR Therapeutics AG (NASDAQ:CRSP) isn’t scheduled until Oct. 31, giving it the best chance of the three of happening on schedule if a shutdown were to resolve quickly...