Less than two months after CVC made the surprising move to revoke two of its seminal European CRISPR patents, Sigma-Aldrich has done it too. While the facts that led to Sigma’s “self” revocation may be different than CVC’s, this en vogue trend of avoiding final decisions is troubling because it denies the public of the certainty it deserves.
CRISPR
To Be Or Not To Be: Self-Revocation of Seminal European Patents Creates New Uncertainty In CRISPR IP Space
By Fangli Chen & Nicholas C. Prairie on
There is no shortage of surprises and twists in the decade-long fight over the control of dominant IP in the CRISPR space. The newest one is the self-revocation of two seminal CRISPR patents in Europe by the team led by two Nobel Laureates Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna (aka “CVC”). …
Orphan Drug Exclusivity for CRISPR/Cas-Based Therapeutics
By Sarah Cork on
The prospect of genetic engineering using CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) and CRISPR-associated nucleases (Cas) has long been hailed as a “revolutionary” development in medicine.
This technology is rapidly advancing, and several CRISPR/Cas-based drugs have entered clinical trials over the past several years. One kind of product in clinical trials is CRISPR-modified cells, such as CTX001 (CRISPR-Cas9-modified autologous hematopoietic stem cells), currently under study for the treatment of b-thalassemia and severe sickle cell anemia. Another CRISPR-based product, AGN-151587, is injected into the eye with the goal of eliminating a genetic mutation in patients with Leber congenital amaurosis 10, a leading cause of childhood blindness. In parallel, others are working to harness the CRISPR/Cas system to develop drugs for rare diseases, including bespoke therapies tailored to an individual patient’s needs.