Allergan (AGN) has struck a $90 million upfront deal to partner with CRISPR/Cas9 leader Editas Medicine, Inc. (EDIT) on up to five programs aimed at curing eye diseases.

EndPts.com

Editas recently won…a nasty scrap over patent rights to its CRISPR/Cas9 technology (a faster, easier way to do gene editing) squaring off against CRISPR Therapeutics (CRSP) and Intellia Therapeutics (NTLA). It’s still early days in the CRISPR world, but gene editing has opened a door to creating a whole new generation of therapies that can fix some terrible ailments – and the potential payoff is huge.

Using CRISPR/Cas9, researchers have been able to edit diseases out of genes in animals, offering a new approach to drug R&D, though we’re likely years away from any late-stage products.

Said Katrine Bosley, President and Chief Executive Officer of Editas Medicine on the deal with AGN: 

Allergan has long been a leader in advancing innovative therapies to treat eye diseases. Working together with Allergan through their Open Science R&D model significantly enhances our ability to develop genome editing medicines to help patients with serious eye diseases. This alliance is highly aligned with our strategy to build our company for the long-term and to realize the broad potential of our genome editing platform to treat serious diseases.