Bill Cara

Cara Community Biotechs: Editas

Editas Medicine (NASDAQ: EDIT) reviewed 10-14-2020

Market Cap: $2.0 Billion (USD)   Share Price: $32.16 (USD)

Shares outstanding: 62,103,649

Cash & cash equivalents: $485.8 M (USD) as of 30 Jun 2020

Debt:  None stated on the balance sheet

Insiders: 2.4%                    Institutional: 291 holders own approx. 76% of the float

Website: editasmedicine.com

Investor Presentations: https://ir.editasmedicine.com/events-and-presentations

CEO: Cynthia Collins                        HQs: Cambridge, Mass. USA

Editas Medicine is a gene-editing company that seeks to transform the genome editing system (CRISPR/Cas9 and CRISPR/Cpf1) into a pipeline of medicines to treat serious diseases

CRISPR is a pair of biological “scissors” used to modify genetic code

The two discoverers of CRISPR, Emmanuelle Charpentier (France) and Jennifer Doudna (US) recently received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry (Note: they are not Editas employees)

Editas has a variety of early-stage clinical products:

IN Vivo CRISPR medicines:

  • EDIT-101 – Leber Congenital Amaurosis 10 (LCA10)
  • EDIT-102 – Usher Syndrome 2A (USH2A)
  • Neurological diseases

EX Vivo CRISPR medicines:

  • EDIT-301 – Sickle Cell
  • EDIT-201 – Healthy Donor NK (HDNK) Cells

The company targets ocular diseases, blood diseases, and cancer

Editas reported a loss of $1.12 (USD) for the six months ended 30 Jun 2020

Bottom Line:

  • Editas is a dark horse biotech that has a genome editing platform based on more precise and safer CRISPR technology now into both in vivo and ex vivo clinical trials using their advanced pluripotent cell line