Ab­b­Vie aban­dons a pi­o­neer­ing CRISPR R&D al­liance with Ed­i­tas as Brent Saun­der­s' deal is cast out

A lit­tle more than 3 years ago Al­ler­gan paid $90 mil­lion in a cash up­front to part­ner with gene edit­ing play­er Ed­i­tas on a CRISPR al­liance fo­cused on the eye. The lead pro­gram cen­tered on LCA10, a rare, in­her­it­ed reti­nal de­gen­er­a­tive dis­ease that ap­pears in child­hood and leads to blind­ness.

Al­ler­gan then went to Ab­b­Vie $AB­BV in a buy­out, and the phar­ma gi­ant has no in­ter­est in mov­ing for­ward on the gene edit­ing front. The com­pa­ny punt­ed it all back to Ed­i­tas Thurs­day, with the biotech $ED­IT not­ing in a state­ment af­ter the mar­ket closed Thurs­day that it is re­gain­ing all rights for its oc­u­lar med­i­cines, in­clud­ing ED­IT-101.

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