Jason Ukman

I spoke with Caribou $CRBU CEO Rachel Haurwitz last night about the gut-wrenching decision to shut down after failing to raise money to move its off-the-shelf CAR-T for lymphoma into a Phase 3 study. “Biotech companies close all the time, usually because the idea didn’t work, or the drug didn’t work. So, you wind down. You learned something, and you move on,” Haurwitz said. “Our experience is incredibly disappointing. Our clinical signal is strong. The benefit to patients is compelling and commercial research shows the drug could be market-leading. But all of that isn’t enough in this fundraising environment to get over the hurdle to raise enough capital,” she added. statnews.com/2026/10/07/cari…

I spoke with Lauren Holder, a Huntington's patient and advocate, about this week's $QURE AMT-130 gene therapy clinical update. “I’m not surprised by the four-year results because this isn’t a cure,” Holder told me. “This is a slowing-of-disease-progression treatment, and so I would expect there’s still decline going on, and we’re going to see that on testing, and that doesn’t mean it’s not working.” Holder is a lot less pleased with the proposed design of UniQure's confirmatory study, which will require some patients to be randomized to a standard treatment arm. "It’s not ethical,” she said. “You’re requiring patients to not receive any treatments for three years or longer, and to not be able to participate in other research. To me, it’s not ethical. To the community, it’s not ethical, and I really feel we need to have a better option.” Read more: statnews.com/2026/10/01/hunt…