Editas (EDIT) Inks Cross Licensing Agreement With BlueRock

Editas Medicine, Inc. (NASDAQ:EDIT) inked a research and cross licensing agreement with BlueRock Therapeutics, LP, to combine their respective genome editing and cell-therapy technologies to discover, develop and manufacture novel engineered cell medicines.

Shares of Editas have increased 17.6% in the past year compared with the industry’s growth of 14%.

The collaboration will focus on the creation of novel, allogeneic pluripotent stem cell (PSC) lines by combining Editas’ CRISPR genome editing technology and BlueRock’s induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) platform. Per the agreement, BlueRock will gain non-exclusive rights to Editas’ CRISPR technology and intellectual property, while Editas will gain non-exclusive rights to the latter's iPSC and cell differentiation technology and intellectual property.

According to Editas, combining CRISPR-based genome editing with cell therapy can deliver game-changing allogeneic medicines. The collaboration with BlueRock provides potential to speed up the development of therapies for people suffering from various diseases.

Per the agreement, both Editas and BlueRock will make development, regulatory and commercial milestone payments to their partners for any licensed engineered cell medicine developed in their respective field. Both the companies will also pay royalties to each other on global net product sales.

Editas makes transformative genomic medicines to treat serious diseases, using its proprietary genome editing platform based on CRISPR technology. The company has a strategic alliance and an option agreement with Allergan Inc. (NYSE:AGN) , under which the latter reserves rights to license up to five of Editas’ genome editing ocular programs.

The company also has a collaboration and licensing deal with Juno Therapeutics, which is now part of Celgene (NASDAQ:CELG) , to use gene-editing approaches, including CRISPR-Cas9, for developing engineered T cell medicines to treat cancer.

Zacks Rank & Stock to Consider

Editas currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

A better-ranked stock worth considering is Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) , carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Johnson & Johnson’s earnings per share estimates have increased from $9.20 to $9.21 for 2020 in the past 60 days. The company delivered a positive earnings surprise in all the trailing four quarters at an average of 1.61%.

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