Did you happen to see 60 Minutes last weekend? There was a segment all about CRISPR. As a matter of fact, a while ago, I predicted that there would eventually be a feature about CRISPR on 60 Minutes.
The acronym CRISPR means “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats”. What this means in very simple terms is that it is a technique for editing and splicing DNA much more quickly, simply, and less expensively than previously done in the past. It is a revolutionary technique that could potentially cure any genetic disease.
According to the free list of CRISPR stocks here at WSTNN.com, there are several publicly traded companies that have jumped on the CRISPR bandwagon, both big and small. Obviously, the CRISPR technology industry is at its very early stages, so there are risks involved with some of the purer plays, none of which are currently generating earnings. Here are some of the pure plays.
Editas Medicine (EDIT) is a Cambridge, Massachusetts based genome editing company, focusing on treating patients with genetically defined diseases through the development of a proprietary genome editing platform based on CRISPR/Cas9 technology. The company, which sports a market cap of a bit over $1.48 billion, and has $146 million in cash, but carries a significant amount of debt.
Intellia Therapeutics (NTLA) is another pure play CRISPR stock, and is currently collaborating with Novartis (NVS). Intellia is developing in vivo projects which target liver diseases, including transthyretin amyloidosis, alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, hepatitis B virus, and inborn errors of metabolism; and ex vivo relating to chimeric antigen receptor T cell and hematopoietic stem cell product candidates. The stock has a market cap of $937 million, cash of $341 million, and has no long term debt.
CRISPR Therapeutics (CRSP) is a Swiss company which is developing transformative gene-based medicines for the treatment of serious human diseases using its regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats associated protein-9 (CRISPR/Cas9). It has a market cap of $2.28 billion, cash of $239 million, and is debt free.
CRISPR is a narrow niche of the biotechnology industry, but it may become the fastest growing and most significant of all the biotech businesses. To see a list of over a dozen CRISPR companies, go to the WSTNN.com link here.
Disclosure: Author didn’t own any of the above at the time the article was written.