CRISPR play Intellia raises $70M

Intellia Therapeutics Inc. (Cambridge, Mass.) closed a $70 million series B round led by new investor OrbiMed. New investors including Fidelity; Janus Capital Management; Foresite Capital; Sectoral Asset Management; EcoR1 Capital; and undisclosed mutual fund and healthcare investors also participated, as did existing investors Atlas Venture and Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS; SIX:NOVN).

In January, Intellia partnered with Novartis to use the biotech's CRISPR- Cas9 technology for ex vivo engineering of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells and to develop hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) therapies (see BioCentury Extra, Jan. 7). ...