What to expect at the FDA's two-day meeting on gene therapy safety

Over the past several years, drugmakers have inundated the Food and Drug Administration with scores of applications to begin clinical trials of experimental gene therapies for a wide array of inherited diseases.

The wave of submissions reflects a research boom that's brought two gene therapies to market in the U.S. and numerous others into later stages of testing. Awash in funding, new gene therapy biotechs have proliferated and, with them, a pipeline that by one count now exceeds 300 would-be treatments.