Glaxo Inks Genome Research Deal With University Of California

GlaxoSmithKline plc (NYSE:GSK) announced that it has entered into a five-year collaboration agreement with the University of California to establish a state-of-the-art laboratory for discovering medicines, using the popular CRISPR technologies.

The laboratory, to be called the Laboratory for Genomics Research (LGR), has been built for funding scientists to research on how genetic mutations cause disease and develop new medicines for the same with the help of CRISPR tech tools.

Per the deal, Glaxo will provide $67 million for funding the LGR over the stipulated five-year period including facilities for 24 full-time university employees plus up to 14 full-time Glaxo employees. The LGR will be based in San Francisco and focus on developing novel therapies in the field of immunology, oncology and neuroscience. Moreover, Glaxo’s artificial intelligence and machine learning team will assist in building the necessary computational pipelines to analyze all the data.

Shares of Glaxo have gained 5% so far this year, outperforming the industry’s increase of 3.1%.

Genomic editing using CRISPR technology to repair a defective genetic material that causes diseases is probably one of the most promising and exciting healthcare innovations seen in decades. CRISPR is an acronym for “Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats.”

Other than Glaxo, many companies are trying to foray into this lucrative market as it holds an immense commercial potential. Companies like Intellia Therapeutics (NASDAQ:NTLA) , Editas Medicine (NASDAQ:EDIT) , Vertex Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:VRTX) and several others are carrying out clinical studies using CRISPR technologies to develop novel therapies and new medicines for curing diseases.

Zacks Rank

Glaxo currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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