Shares of clinical-stage biotech company Caribou Biosciences (NASDAQ: CRBU) were up more than 58% as of 11:15 a.m. ET on Thursday after (NYSE: PFE) made a $25 million equity investment in the company. The healthcare stock is up more than 3% so far this year.

Caribou focuses on CRISPR gene-editing therapies. On Thursday, the company said Pfizer bought nearly 4.7 million shares of Caribou on June 29 at $5.33 a share as part of a securities purchase agreement that closed on June 30. Caribou said it will use the money to finance the development of its pipeline.

The pipeline includes two lead candidates: CB-010, used to treat patients with relapsed or refractory B cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and CB-011, an immune-cloaked allogeneic CAR-T cell therapy in a phase 1 trial to treat patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma. The move by Pfizer shows confidence in Caribou's pipeline and potentially signals a buyout down the road.

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Source Fool.com