A phone screen displays the logo of Sana Biotechnology, in front of a larger screen showing its website -- Biotech coverage from STAT
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Jason Mast is a general assignment reporter at STAT focused on the science behind new medicines and the systems and people that decide whether that science ever reaches patients. You can reach Jason on Signal at JasonMast.05.

Matthew Herper covers medical innovation — both its promise and its perils.

Last week, Sana Biotechnology, a once-mysterious and still-buzzy biotech startup, released clinical trial results showing that it had managed to implant insulin-producing cells in the arm muscle of a patient with type 1 diabetes without provoking immune rejection.

Beyond the fact that there were only results available for a single patient, researchers had only one month’s worth of follow-up data at a very low dose. At first blush, the results might have prompted a shrug.

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Yet Sana’s stock price initially soared 200%. And even if experts weren’t quite as exuberant, some acknowledged the company and the field had potentially taken an important step forward. 

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