CRISPR Therapeutics an outperform at William Blair on diversified pipeline

William Blair has resumed coverage of CRISPR Therapeutics (NASDAQ:CRSP) with an outperform rating saying that the gene editing company's pipeline can provide future upside.
The firm has a $75 price target (~16% upside based on Friday's close).
Analyst Sami Corwin said that the commercial opportunity for exa-cel is large and could become the first CRISPR-based therapy to win US FDA approval by the end of the year.
CRISPR (CRSP) is partnered with Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX) on exa-cel, which is in phase 2/3 for sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia.
She believes that should the exa-cel BLA receive Priority Review status, it could be approved by the end of the year.
Corwin noted that while the two companies will initially target ~35K patients in the US and EU with severe forms of the diseases, the total addressable market could be as high as 150K given CRISPR (CRSP) and Vertex (CRSP) are developing targeted conditioning agents, which would make exa-cel treatment less harsh and carry less risk.
She added one of the agents under development by CRISPR (CRSP) is an anti-CD117 antibody-drug conjugate.

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