Crispr Gene-Editing Breakthrough Is a Big Deal. How Big?
For the first time, the gene-modifying technology was shown to work in the human body to treat disease, offering huge hope for further uses. Here’s what you need to know.
The era of curing disease by tweaking DNA just got a lot closer.
Photographer: Gregor Fischer/dpa/AP images
Sam Fazeli, a Bloomberg Opinion contributor who covers the pharmaceutical industry for Bloomberg Intelligence, answers questions after Intellia Therapeutics Inc. and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. released promising findings from the first human clinical trial using gene-editing Crispr technology in the body to treat a disease. Intellia shares surged more than 40% on the news. The conversation has been edited and condensed.
This is the first successful in-human gene editing with Crispr that we know of, and it seems to work really well. Is this a big deal?