Why We’re Selling Editas Medicine Stock

When we first encountered the exciting world of synthetic biology, we couldn’t wait to invest in the leader at the time – Intrexon. Then, when the company’s fearless leader spent an earnings call talking about how much money they planned to make selling apple slices, we exited our position and realized that most synthetic biology stocks were failing miserably on the execution side. Today, we’re approaching the usual synbio suspects – Zymergen, Amyris, and Ginkgo Bioworks – with a great deal of trepidation. While we see signs of promise for Ginkgo’s business model, we’re sitting on the sidelines for now.

As we wait to see how Ginkgo progresses, we decided to vet our current selection of gene editing stocks to see what we own and why. Admittedly, the “why” was simply a spray-and-pray approach where we invested in the first three CRISPR stocks to go public – Intellia (NTLA), Crispr Therapeutics (CRSP), and Editas Medicine (EDIT) – and left it at that. Then, we revisited these three companies last year in a piece titled