CRISPR Therapeutics a worthy investment?

On Tuesday, July 13, I posted a part 1 video about CRISPR Therapeutics, comparing it to five other Crispr companies, namely Intellia Therapeutics, Editas Medicine, Beam Therapeutics, Verve Therapeutics, and Graphite Bio.

If you're considering in investing CRISPR Therapeutics, please read on to find out how it is performing against these five peer companies based on technology, market cap, and partners.

Using the guide RNA Crispr, the six companies have different ways of editing the genome. CRISPR Therapeutics, as well as Intellia Therapeutics, Editas Medicine, and Graphite Bio, use Cas9 gene-editing system, which people refer to as the scissor method of editing the genome. However, Graphite Bio is using Adenovirus Vector to encapsulate the products for gene editing. Furthermore, Beam Therapeutics and Verve Therapeutics also use a different system called Base Editor, which allows them to edit the individual nucleotides in a given genome. The Base Editor system, according to some, is the more efficient system. CRISPR Therapeutics and Intellia Therapeutics were founded by Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennnifer Doudna, respectively, who were both recipients of the prestigious Nobel Prize award. Editas Medicine and Beam Therapeutics have the same founders, such as Feng Zhang-who discovered Crispr/Cas9 and David Liu who invented the base editing system. Verve Therapeutics and Graphite Bio, meanwhile, only listed a founder each; Sekar Kathiresan, MD founded the former, while Matthew Porteus founded the latter. 

If the number of years in the industry is your basis in investing, CRISPR Therapeutics, together with Editas Medicine, are the oldest of the 6 companies, having been founded in 2013. Intellia Therapeutics followed in 2014; Beam Therapeutics and Graphite Bio were both established in 2017. The year after 2017, Verve Therapeutics comes into play. 

CRISPR Therapeutics and Intellia Therapeutics are currently trading with the largest market cap, at $11.81B and $11.16B, respectively. Although founded in 2013, Editas Medicine has a market cap of $3.73B. Competing in the industry since 2017, Beam Therapeutics registered a market cap of $8.15B. Other new newcomers Verve Therapeutics (at $2.2B) and Graphite Bio (at $1.5B) have the lowest market caps on the list.

With regards to partnerships, CRISPR Therapeutics and Editas Medicine top the list with a total of five partners each. CRISPR Therapeutics has partnered with Vertex, Bayer, Viacyte, Capsida, and Nkarta Therapeutics. While Editas Medicine listed Catalent, Beam, Bristol Meyers Squibb, and BlueRock as partners. Intellia Therapeutics has Novartis and Regenero as partners. Furthermore, Beam Therapeutics and Verve Therapeutics have decided to partner with each other; they've also listed Editas and Google as their respective second partners.

To summarize, CRISPR Therapeutics has been fairly competing in the biotechnology industry. Being one of the oldest on the list, with a market value of $11.81B, and registering five partners, CRISPR Therapeutics is sure to be worth investing in.

However, if you're still undecided and looking for other considerations in investing, watch out for my next blog post on the part II video about CRISPR Therapeutics.