Intellia gets upgrade at Brookline amid 'unchanged' patent risk on CRISPR/Cas9 technology

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Intellia Therapeutics (NTLA -3.1%) was upgraded by Brookline Capital Management to Buy from Hold with a $91 price target.

Brookline analyst Leah Cann said the patent risk is unchanged, but the valuation has become attractive.

In February, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office backed the Broad Institute of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in their claims on certain patents related to CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing in human cells. Pending an appeal, the decision ended a U.S. patent dispute between Broad and the University of California, the University of Vienna, and Emmanuelle Charpentier.

The University of California at Berkeley and the University of Vienna were the first to file patents on gene-editing in 2012. In that year, Jennifer Doudna, a co-founder of Intellia, of UC Berkeley and Charpentier of the University of Vienna first outlined the technology in a paper.

The analysts added that patents, and litigation around patents, remain an important component for companies working to develop CRISPR-based therapeutics, but the analyst believes these disputes will continue in the courts and does not anticipate "any defining litigation or resolution until a CRISPR-based technology is FDA-approved and marketed," adding that she anticipates Intellia could launch its first drug, NTLA-2001, in 2025.

In February, Intellia and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals reported positive updated interim data from a phase 1 trial of its CRISPR gene editing therapy NTLA-2001 to treat transthyretin (ATTR) amyloidosis.