How a dinner conversation got GSK in with a CRISPR pioneer

GlaxoSmithKline is teaming up with CRISPR pioneer Jennifer Doudna in pharmaco-academic alliance that traces its beginnings to a Mediterranean meal.

As STAT’s Matthew Herper reports, it all began when Doudna, the University of California, Berkeley researcher who co-invented the CRISPR enzyme technology, had dinner last year with Hal Barron, who had just started as GlaxoSmithKline’s chief scientific officer. What ensued was a “wide-ranging” conversation about how genome-editing technology might lead to better drug targets.

Now GSK has agreed to spend up to $67 million over five years to staff a lab for that very purpose.

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