Editas Medicine was started just two years ago, while 5 months ago, they announced that they had raised $120 million in a Series B to bring therapeutic CRISPR gene editing to market. In an SEC IPO filing this week Editas announced they are hoping to raise $100 million in order to run clinical trials using CRISPR as a treatment of Leber Congenital Amaurosis type 10, or LCA10, a genetic disease that causes progressive blindness. What are the motives for such an early IPO?

In 2008, Luciano Marraffini discovered that CRISPR/Cas9 acts on DNA, suggesting that it could be used for more than just defense against phages. Then in 2011, the lab of Emmanuelle Charpentier discovered the tracrRNA, an integral part of the CRISPR system. A flurry of papers came about describing the discovery of a new gene engineering technology that required little actual human intervention. The first modern CRISPR work came in 2011, from the lab of Virginijus Siksnys, showing that the system found in Streptococcus thermophilus could be made to work in Escherichia coli. This was followed in 2012 by work from the labs of Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier, testing and describing the salient features of CRISPR with a patent subsequently filed by both. A paper published by Marraffini and Feng Zhang in Jan. 2013 showed that CRISPR could be used in human cells, followed closely by a paper published by Doudna showing something similar.The company “Genengine” was incorporated in September 2013, with the goal of developing therapeutic uses for the newly validated CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing system. A few months later Genengine changed its name to Editas and two of CRISPR’s heavyweights, Jennifer Doudna and Feng Zhang were co-founders of the company. That was short lived, however. On April 15th, 2014, the Broad Institute’s patent for CRISPR was published ahead of Doudna and Charpentier’s due to a priority filing, with some suggesting very few were in the know about it, was Doudna misled? In May 2014, Jennifer Doudna terminated her working relationship with Editas. A Science team regaled akin to the Avengers was broken. The technology is now under dispute between the University of California, Berkeley, Doudna’s research home and The Broad Institute, Zhang’s research home. Editas being associated with the patent might be one of the things that has helped it raise so much money. Of all the CRISPR companies that exist at the moment, Editas has raised the most money by far with ~$210 million in three rounds. Doudna is part of two companies, Intellia Therapeutics, which has raised ~$85 million total, with a recent $70 million round in late 2015 and Caribou Biosciences, which has raised ~$15 million. Besides investments, Editas has started a partnership with Juno Therapeutics, which had the most successful Biotech IPO of 2014, raising around $250 million. Juno will pay Editas at least $47 million, with milestones bringing in $230 million for each program.With so much money raised in private markets already, why the rush for Editas to IPO so early? Editas often stated in SEC filing that they ”Do not anticipate generating revenues from product sales for the next several years, if ever”. The filing also refers to patent litigation a lot in fact, large portions are dedicated to the potential of intellectual property issues, which can be expensive. Further, according to the IPO, Editas spent ~$60 million in operating expenses in the first 9 months of 2015: a high burn rate which may be another reason to push for the early IPO.

Is it just money though that Editas Medicine needs?

The average age of a company filing for an IPO in 2015 was 13 years old according to Renaissance Capital’s IPO Dataset and the numbers appear to be similar from a sampling of the Biotech companies filing an IPO in 2014 and 2015. Editas, at little more than 2 years old at the time of this filing, is an anomaly. If it is just money why submit so soon with the opportunity to wait and raise more with early successes? Even without the IPO Editas has also proclaimed that their funding rounds have been oversubscribed, which could mean that there is something more than just money that they are looking for.Editas is probably the most well known CRISPR company and has one of the most well known modern Scientists on its board - George Church. Remember that Editas courted Jennifer Doudna as a cofounder before the patent was published on April, 15th 2014? Was that an attempt to try and diffuse a litigious patent situation? Feng Zhang has openly claimed that he has lab notebooks that show he has prior art. Is Editas’s IPO just another flag that they are planting in an attempt to defend their patent? A first they can claim? So who owns CRISPR? The people who patented it first? The people who received the patent first? The people with the most money? The people with the first treatment? BioHackers? (full disclosure, that’s my IndieGoGo campaign!)Whatever the reason for Editas early IPO, one thing you should take away is that their proposed NASDAQ market symbol is “EDIT”, and that’s pretty cool!

Correction:

This article has been edited on January 8 to state that Feng Zhang’s paper actually came out in January 2013 before Doudna’s paper. Zhang’s paper was therefore the first to demonstrate CRISPR could be used in human cells.