In April, Vertex amended a 2017 deal it signed with CRISPR Therapeutics to work on CTX001, a CRISPR-based therapy for beta-thalassemia and sickle cell disease. Vertex agreed to pay a whopping $900 million upfront to reap the majority profit from future sales of the drug. Now the company is investing close to $700 million on another CRISPR deal.

On October 26th, Vertex announced a new partnership with Mammoth Biosciences to develop in vivo gene-editing therapies for two genetic diseases using Mammoth's next-generation CRISPR systems.

"Vertex and Mammoth share the same commitment to developing therapies that have the potential to be transformative for people with serious diseases," said David Altshuler, M.D., Ph.D., CSO of Vertex Pharmaceuticals. "We look forward to expanding our cell and genetic therapies capabilities with the addition of Mammoth's ultra-small CRISPR systems for in vivo genome editing, which will provide us with another set of tools to tackle many of the diseases we're interested in.