Roche looks to ge­net­ic mod­i­fiers for new drug tar­gets, team­ing up with Dutch biotech in $375M deal

Roche is gam­bling on a new way of dis­cov­er­ing drug tar­gets and, ul­ti­mate­ly, promis­ing to in­fuse more than $375 mil­lion in­to a small biotech if all goes well.

A spin­out of the Nether­lands Can­cer In­sti­tute and Ox­ford Uni­ver­si­ty, Scenic Biotech set out to pi­o­neer a field that’s gain­ing some trac­tion among top VCs in the US: to har­ness the nat­ur­al pro­tect­ing pow­ers of ge­net­ic mod­i­fiers — spe­cif­ic genes that sup­press a dis­ease phe­no­type.

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