By 2025, gene editing will have cured at least one major disease.

Judge at 31 December 2025. True: by that date, a gene-editing therapy (CRISPR, base or prime editing, or similar; not gene-addition or gene-silencing therapies) has been approved by a major regulator (FDA, EMA or MHRA) or has shown in clinical trials durable elimination of disease symptoms in most treated patients, and it is widely described as a cure or functional cure. The disease must be major, meaning it affects a large population (for example sickle cell disease or beta-thalassemia, which affect millions worldwide), not only an ultra-rare condition. Mostly true: this standard is met, but credible sources describe the result mainly as a "potential" or "functional" cure with significant caveats about how long it lasts. Mostly false: gene editing has cured only ultra-rare diseases, or has shown strong but not yet curative results for a major disease. False: by end-2025 no gene-editing therapy has produced a cure or functional cure for any disease.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 Researchers Publish Final Results of Key Clinical Trial for Gene Therapy for Sickle Cell Disease Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), Gene and Cell Therapy Institute · 24 April 2024

   “The findings, published today in the New England Journal of Medicine, provide the complete details of the critical clinical trial that led to the FDA approval of CASGEVY™ for the treatment of sickle cell disease in December 2023.”

2. E2 Researchers Publish Final Results of Key Clinical Trial for Gene Therapy for Sickle Cell Disease Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), Gene and Cell Therapy Institute · 24 April 2024

   “The study found that 96.7% of patients in the study did not have any vaso-occlusive crises (VOCs) – a blockage that results in lack of oxygen and painful episodes – for at least one year, and 100% were able to remain hospitalization-free for the same length of time.”

3. E3 Casgevy; INN-exagamglogene autotemcel - European Medicines Agency European Medicines Agency (CHMP assessment report EMA/6332/2024) · 14 December 2023

   “Gene-based therapies are promising approaches that have the potential to provide a functional cure in patients with severe β-thalassemia.”

4. E4 Casgevy; INN-exagamglogene autotemcel - European Medicines Agency European Medicines Agency (CHMP assessment report EMA/6332/2024) · 14 December 2023

   “Based on the issues listed above, the clinical data provided in the MAA are not considered comprehensive.”

The evidence shows that CASGEVY was FDA-approved for sickle cell disease in December 2023, and that 96.7% of trial patients had no vaso-occlusive crises for at least one year (E1, E2). It does not show that CASGEVY is a gene-editing therapy, as opposed to another kind of gene therapy, and it does not show the therapy being widely described as a cure: the only cure wording is a "potential" functional cure for gene-based therapies (E3). So the evidence does not settle the claim under the criteria.