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Centessa, a biotech company that raised more than $300 million in an IPO earlier this year, has an early-stage treatment for hemophilia that might compete with the gene therapies nearing the market.

The company’s drug, a monthly treatment injected under the skin, significantly reduced the rate of bleeding for patients with hemophilia A and B in a small study, Centessa said Thursday. In the trial, which enrolled just 23 people and was not placebo-controlled, the highest dose of Centessa’s drug led to an 88% reduction in annualized bleeding rate compared to baseline after six months.

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If that number holds up in larger, longer studies — which Centessa plans to conduct — the treatment’s efficacy might be comparable to that of gene therapies now in late-stage development. (Roche’s Hemlibra, a weekly treatment for hemophilia A, reduced bleeds by about 96%.)

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