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CAMBRIDGE, Mass., May 12, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Editas Medicine, Inc. (Nasdaq: EDIT), a pioneering gene editing company, today announced that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed-in-part and vacated-in-part the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTABs) previous decision and remanded it back to the PTAB for further review in the U.S. patent interference involving specific patents for CRISPR/Cas9 editing in human cells between the University of California, the University of Vienna, and Emmanuelle Charpentier and the Broad Institute (Broad). The Company’s in-licensed patents covering CRISPR/Cas12a are not at issue in the interference and are unaffected by this decision.
“We remain confident in the strength of our IP portfolio and that it will continue to generate significant value both now and in the future. This decision does not affect our ability to license our IP, nor does it change existing licenses we have issued. We remain focused on executing on our strategy, which includes licensing this foundational IP and developing transformative gene editing medicines for people living with serious diseases,” said Gilmore O’Neill, M.B., M.M.Sc., President and Chief Executive Officer, Editas Medicine. “We remain optimistic that the PTAB will ultimately render a decision in favor of Broad.”
O’Neill added, “Editas holds a large portfolio of foundational U.S. and international patents and is the exclusive licensee of Harvard University’s and the Broad Institute's Cas9 patent estates covering Cas9 use for developing human medicines. It is important to note that only a fraction of these patents are currently involved in these ongoing interference proceedings before the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).”
Editas Medicine’s foundational intellectual property includes issued patents covering fundamental aspects of both CRISPR/Cas12a and CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing in all human cells. Successfully editing this cell type is essential to making CRISPR-based medicines. Additionally, the Company holds a wide range of fundamental intellectual property directed to all the components of its gene editing platform including product-enabling and product-specific intellectual property covering the use of CRISPR/Cas12a and CRISPR/Cas9 for gene editing of human cells in the United States, Australia, Europe, Japan, China, and other jurisdictions.
About Editas Medicine
As a pioneering gene editing company, Editas Medicine is focused on translating the power and potential of the CRISPR/Cas12a and CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing systems into a robust pipeline of in vivo medicines for people living with serious diseases around the world. Editas Medicine aims to discover, develop, manufacture, and commercialize transformative, durable, precision in vivo gene editing medicines for a broad class of diseases. Editas Medicine is the exclusive licensee of Broad Institute’s Cas12a patent estate and Broad Institute and Harvard University’s Cas9 patent estates for human medicines. For the latest information and scientific presentations, please visit www.editasmedicine.com.