CRISPR vs. Gene Therapy Round 1: What Investors Need to Know

Traditional gene therapy has seen numerous challenges during its decades of development, but scientists seem to have finally figured out how to get the treatment to work with regulatory approvals for Novartis' (NYSE: NVS) Zolgensma and bluebird bio's (NASDAQ: BLUE) Zynteglo this year. The process involves inserting genes into diseased cells to express missing or mutated proteins.

Storming onto the scene over the past few years, CRISPR/Cas9, championed by CRISPR Therapeutics (NASDAQ: CRSP), Editas Medicine (NASDAQ: EDIT) and Intellia Therapeutics (NASDAQ: NTLA), offered hope for more precise gene editing. At the very least, the process can insert the gene into a precise location in the genome. More impressive -- and something that traditional gene therapy can't readily do -- CRISPR/Cas9 offers the possibility of deleting problematic genes or making specific changes to mutated genes to restore their functions.

Image source: Getty Images.

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Source Fool.com