UK’s RoslinCT, a cell and gene therapy contract development and manufacturing organization, will be part of the Vertex Pharmaceuticals global network producing the CRISPR-based therapy exa-cel, which will be used for treatment of sickle cell disease and transfusion-dependent beta thalassemia.
Bayer will potentially pump well over $1 billion into another major gene therapy collaboration, this time with Brisbane, California-based Mammoth BioSciences. In the pact announced during the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference, held virtually for the second consecutive year, the German pharma and agriculture group said it aims to tap the US company’s knowhow in CRISPR systems to develop in vivo gene-editing therapies.
An all-female team comprised of Emmanuelle Charpentier from the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens, Berlin, Germany, and Jennifer A. Doudna from the University of California in Berkeley, USA, has won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
