Just six days after CRISPR Therapeutics secured a landmark FDA approval for its Vertex-partnered gene therapy Casgevy, the biotech’s Chief Medical Officer Phuong Khanh Morrow, M.D., resigned.
Morrow, who has been with the company since May 2022, resigned from her post yesterday but will officially depart on Jan. 26, according to Securities and Exchange Commission documents filed Dec. 19. Her resignation was not the result of any disagreement with the gene-editing company, CRISPR added.
The biotech told Fierce Biotech that it has already kicked off the search for a new CMO. “CRISPR Therapeutics has a seasoned leadership team with extensive experience managing clinical development for CRISPR’s programs and is well positioned to successfully manage the transition,” a spokesperson said via email.
Before joining CRISPR Tx, Morrow spent more than 10 years in various leadership roles at Amgen.
The resignation follows the historic approval of Vertex and CRISPR Tx’s Casgevy, also known as exa-cel, on Dec. 8. The therapy is a long-awaited potential cure for sickle cell disease, a debilitating and life-threatening condition that affects more than 100,000 people in the U.S., most of whom are Black.
Casgevy is also the first medicine using the revolutionary CRISPR gene-editing system, which earned its inventors a Nobel Prize in 2020 and holds tantalizing potential to cure diseases for which there is no treatment.