Kevin Davies on Gene Therapy in 2023

0:00 Casgevy: the first CRISPR therapeutic

6:00 Competition and pricing

18:39 Some history of sickle cell disease

24:51 Other disease areas

29:02 CRISPR evolves:  epigenetic editing, Tome Bio

41:52 He’s back: He Jiankui is out of jail working on CRISPR


This month, the FDA approved the first CRISPR-based gene therapy called Casgevy (pronounced with a soft g). It’s a one-and-done treatment for sickle cell disease and is being hailed as major step forward in medicine. 

Joining us to discuss this breakthrough is our return champion, Kevin Davies, author of Editing Humanity: The CRISPR Revolution and the New Era of Genome Editing and Executive Editor of the CRISPR Journal and GEN Biotechnology.

Kevin takes us into the science of the new gene therapy and what it means for patients. He also gives a captivating history of sickle cell disease itself. 

How will sickle cell patients afford the $2.2 million price list? How has CRISPR as a tool been evolving this year?  What other areas are heating up for gene therapy?  And we do a little catch-up on a certain scandal around genome editing. 

Note: In holiday spirit, we’re publishing the full show for free.