- Casebia Therapeutics, the joint venture between Bayer (OTCPK:BAYRY) and gene editing firm CRISPR Therapeutics, will operate out of Cambridge, MA. The site will house 80 employees, mostly in R&D. Dr. Axel Bouchon will lead as interim CEO.
- The JV was announced in December 2015. Bayer will contribute at least $300M to develop CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing technology to treat a range of disorders in the blood, cardiovascular area and eyes. Bayer also acquired a majority stake in CRISPR for $35M.
- Bayer closed a separate development deal in May with privately held ERS Genomics for gain access to its CRISPR/Cas9 patents for certain applications.
- One of the founders of CRISPR Therapeutics was CRISPR/Cas9 discoverer Dr. Emmanuelle Charpentier. CRISPR inked a $105M licensing deal with Vertex Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:VRTX) in October 2015 that will enable Vertex to discover its own drug targets.
- The other discoverer of CRISPR/Cas9, Dr. Jennifer Doudna, founded Caribou Biosciences, based in Berkeley, CA. Relatively recent IPO Intellia Therapeutics (NASDAQ:NTLA), also based in Cambridge, MA, was spun out of Caribou to specifically develop drugs based on the much-hyped technology.
- The other CRISPR/Cas9 player, based in Cambridge, MA as well, is Editas Medicine (NASDAQ:EDIT), founded by an MIT-Harvard group that is currently in litigation with the Berkeley group over ownership of the CRISPR/Cas9 patents.
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CRISPR-Cas9 is the "next big thing" in biotech because of its unprecedented precision in editing DNA. CRISPR, the acronym for "clustered, regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats," uses RNA to guide the molecular scissors, the Cas9 enzyme, to a specific DNA sequence where it makes a specific cut in the DNA and triggers the cell's DNA repair machinery to address the genetic defect.
- Previously: Bayer strengthens position with gene editing technology with patent license deal (May 17)