Beam Therapeutics Sues YolTech, Serapha Bio Over Base Editing Trade Secrets

Beam Therapeutics (Nasdaq: BEAM) sued Chinese biotech YolTech Therapeutics and U.S. partner Serapha Bio in Massachusetts federal court on Sept. 25, 2026, alleging an experimental treatment licensed between them was developed using stolen base editing trade secrets. The complaint alleges former Beam scientist Zi Jun "Emma" Wang secretly founded YolTech while employed at Beam in 2021-2022, then filed patent applications based on Beam's confidential information five months after leaving. YolTech later licensed an AATD program to Serapha, which announced a reverse merger and $230 million in funding from RA Capital and RTW Investments. Serapha "categorically refutes" the claims and will "vigorously defend" itself, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer Shiva Fritsche said. Beam's BEAM-302 and Serapha's SERP-01 target the same mutation, changing a nucleotide at the same DNA location.