Startups, BioPharma

CRISPR gene editing: A commercial timeline

CRISPR gene editing is heralded one of the most promising technologies today – and it’s ramping up fast. Here’s a commercial timeline – from just the past year.

By Meghana Keshavan on January 22, 2016

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In just three years, CRISPR gene editing has hurtled to the forefront of biological science – with vast potential in agribusiness, human health, and industrial biotechnology. And unlike many nascent biotechs, which take years to attract significant funding, CRISPR has already attracted a lot of commercial interest. 2015 was a banner year for the technology. One could wager that once this patent nonsense is behind us, CRISPR will accelerate forward at breakneck pace.

The Broad Institute has a comprehensive timeline of CRISPR’s scientific development. Scientific American just published a story that details CRISPR’s commercial timeline. Here it is, sequentially:

January 2015

  • Novartis signs two deals with Intellia Therapeutics and Caribou Biosciences to engineer immune cells and blood stem cells, meant for drug discovery research.
  • AstraZeneca signs four deals with the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, the Innovative Genomics Initiative, the Broad and Whitehead Institutes in Massachusetts, and Thermo Fisher Scientific. It’s meant for preclinical validation of new drug targets.

May 2015

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A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma

A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.

By PurpleLab
  • Juno Therapeutics and Editas Medicine collaborate on next-gen CAR-T and TCR Cell therapies.

August 2015

October 2015

  • Vertex Pharmaceuticals and CRISPR Therapeutics sign a deal worth up to $2.6 billion.

December 2015

  • Bayer and CRISPR Therapeutics team up in a $335 million gene editing pact to develop new therapies for blood disorders, blindness and congenital heart disease.

January 2016