Editas surges as Wells Fargo sizes up sickle cell candidates

 

• Editas Medicine (EDIT) gains +26.0% in value as Wells Fargo upgrades the stock from Equal Weight to overweight, citing the company’s recent ASH update on EDIT-301, its candidate for sickle cell disease.
• Highlighting the recent validation of fetal hemoglobin (HbF) as a target against the disease, the researchers have observed ‘a significant upside potential given the current valuation gap relative to SCD gene editing peer.’
• Announcing a large-scale manufacturing process for edited CD34+ cells, the component of the therapy, Editas said it was on track to file an IND submission for EDIT-301 or the treatment of sickle cell disease by the end of 2020 as it prepares for Phase 1/2 clinical trial.
• With high levels of editing in CD34+ cells from normal donors and sickle cell patients, the data in the pre-clinical studies have demonstrated what the company identified as ‘a robust fetal hemoglobin (HbF) induction in their erythroid progeny in a pan-cellular fashion’.
• As appeared in a peer-reviewed article, CRISPR Therapeutics (CRSP) has already demonstrated a rapid and sustained increases in total hemoglobin and fetal hemoglobin in a small subset of patients undergoing a Phase 1/2 clinical trials for its SCD candidate, CTX001. Fetal hemoglobin (HbF) protects against sickle cell disease by inhibiting HbS polymerization.
• On EV to TTM sales, Editas trade at ~28.5x with a ~75.6% discount to CRISPR.
• https://seekingalpha.com/news/3643445-editas-surges-26-wells-fargo-sizes-up-scd-candidates