Vertex gambles $950M on biotech buyout, hunting a cure for diabetes
Vertex Pharmaceuticals $VRTX is spending close to a billion dollars to take a carefully aimed shot at curing Type 1 diabetes.
Doug Melton Harvard The big cap biotech is paying $950 million in cash to bag Semma Therapeutics, a biotech company that sprung out of decades of work by Harvard professor Doug Melton. Five years ago Melton published a landmark study showing the potential for using stem cells to create insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells that were inserted in bulk into mice and successfully protected from an immune response — a breakthrough in regenerative medicine.
Semma’s team has been doing the preclinical groundwork for the human studies to come.
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