{"id":368119,"date":"2023-12-01T05:37:37","date_gmt":"2023-12-01T10:37:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/platohealth.ai\/the-first-crispr-cure-might-kickstart-the-next-big-patent-battle\/"},"modified":"2023-12-02T01:00:13","modified_gmt":"2023-12-02T06:00:13","slug":"the-first-crispr-cure-might-kickstart-the-next-big-patent-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/platohealth.ai\/the-first-crispr-cure-might-kickstart-the-next-big-patent-battle\/","title":{"rendered":"The first CRISPR cure might kickstart the next big patent battle","gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"text"}]},"content":{"rendered":"
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That\u2019s a real nice CRISPR cure you have there. It would be a pity if anything happened to it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Okay. Drop the tough-guy accent and toss the black fedora aside. But I do believe that similar conversations could be occurring now that a historic gene-editing cure is coming to market, as soon as this year.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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By the middle of December, Vertex Pharmaceuticals, based in Boston, is expected to receive FDA approval to sell a revolutionary new treatment for sickle-cell disease that\u2019s the first to use CRISPR to alter the DNA inside human cells. (Vertex has\u00a0already received regulatory approval<\/a>\u00a0in the UK.)<\/p>\n

The problem is that the US patent on editing human cells with CRISPR isn\u2019t owned by Vertex<\/strong>\u2014it is owned by the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, probably America\u2019s largest gene research center, and exclusively licensed to a Vertex competitor, Editas Medicine, which has its own sickle-cell treatment in testing.<\/p>\n

That means Editas will want Vertex to pay. And if it doesn\u2019t, Broad and Editas could go to the courts to claim patent infringement, demand royalties and damages, or even try to stop the treatment from being sold with an injunction.<\/p>\n

\u201cI imagine we\u2019ll see a lawsuit by the end of the year,\u201d says Jacob Sherkow, an expert on gene-editing patents at the University of Illinois College of Law. \u201cIt\u2019s the moment patent litigators in this space have been waiting for.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n