Gene-editing firm Editas today became one of the first companies to go public this year, raising $94 million that it hopes to use to develop a technology called CRIPSR-Cas9, which can make very precise changes to DNA, into a powerful new tool for treating illness.
The move, while expected, is bold for two reasons. First, no such therapy has been approved for clinical use in either the U.S. or Europe.
More importantly, Editas doesn’t even know for sure whether it even has the right to use CRISPR. Two of the scientists who founded the company (Jennifer Doudna of the University of California, Berkeley, and Feng Zhang of the Broad Institute and MIT) each claim to have invented CRISPR independently. They are now tangled in a complex legal dispute. Currently Zhang holds the upper hand, as he has been granted a dozen key patents by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and Editas licenses them from Zhang and the Broad Institute. But Doudna contests Zhang’s primacy, and if she wins, Editas could be in trouble.
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