Key Points

• Even if it’s not being officially reported yet, its drug Casgevy is accruing revenue that will show up in earnest beginning next year.

• That being said, CRISPR Therapeutics’ developmental pipeline shows promise well beyond Casgevy’s potential.

• Largely lost in the noise is the fact that the company’s patented gene-editing know-how is an asset that can be monetized in many other ways.

• 10 stocks we like better than CRISPR Therapeutics ›

It's been a disappointing couple of years for shareholders of biotechnology outfit CRISPR Therapeutics (NASDAQ: CRSP). This stock's barely up since the end of 2022, lagging the broad market's gains. It's not the performance that investors keeping tabs on this company were expecting, given its potential.

Don't be discouraged, though. While still speculative like most young biotech names, CRISPR Therapeutics remains a compelling prospect for investors who can stomach the risk and its inevitable volatility. Here's why.

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What's CRISPR Therapeutics?

On the off-chance you're reading this and aren't already familiar with the company, CRISPR Therapeutics is a drug developer that specializes in gene editing.

It's probably an area you've heard a great deal about. No gene-editing drugs were actually on the market in the United States until CRISPR Therapeutics' Casgevy was approved by the FDA as a treatment for sickle cell disease in late 2023. Any and all gene therapies currently on the market followed this pioneer's foray. Being first is a well-deserved accolade for the company, too, which was co-founded by Dr. Emmanuelle Charpentier, who was one of the co-discoverers of the CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing mechanism that makes Casgevy work.

CRISPR -- short for "clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats" -- is a specific sequence on a strand of DNA that can be spliced into with a protein called Cas9, allowing it to be replaced with a genetically correct sequence. Charpentier's work, along with Jennifer Doudna's, was so pivotal that the duo won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2020. CRISPR Therapeutics had already done a great deal of developmental work by then, however, recognizing the potential of being able to "fix" damaged genetic code, treating many diseases at the root of their problem.

And at times, this stock performed as brilliantly as you might expect it to ... particularly when the company's co-founder won a Nobel Prize for her work. Other times (and since then), not so much, including this year's lethargic performance.

Just don't give up hope yet. The best is yet to come.

3 reasons CRSP stock is still a buy

There's still risk here to be sure. That's just the nature of all biotech stocks, and pre-profit, pre-revenue companies in particular.

There are also reasons to be cautiously bullish, though, three of which stand out from the rest.

1. Revenue is coming

Despite the drug being approved all the way back in 2023, it's hard to ignore that CRISPR Therapeutics hasn't officially reported any Casgevy revenue. Don't misunderstand, though. The sickle cell treatment is being administered and accruing revenue. The company just can't book any of it yet.

The holdup is the time required to complete a treatment regimen. Since each treatment is custom-created for that particular patient, the entire process can take up to a year to complete. That's when revenue finally gets officially booked.

It's coming, though. As the company's second-quarter report points out, the drug technically accrued $76 million worth of revenue in Q2, up 78% year over year. Even after treatment partner Vertex Pharmaceutical (NASDAQ: VRTX) takes its cut, analysts expect CRISPR Therapeutics to report sales of $156 million next year, well up from this year's $41 million in (mostly grant and developmental) revenue, en route to a top line of more than $600 million in 2028.

Even just a hint of this progress could spark some bullishness from this stock.

2. Its pipeline is underappreciated

Largely lost in all the hullabaloo surrounding Casgvey is the fact that CRISPR Therapeutics is working on so much more. Its research and development pipeline currently includes clinical trials of oncology drugs, cardiovascular disease treatments, and others. For instance, its CTX310 is particularly promising as a means of lowering cholesterol. Although still only in phase 1 clinical trials, the in-vivo CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing therapy targeting ANGPTL3 (the liver-made Angiopoietin-like protein 3) that stifles fat-reducing enzymes showed reductions of between 50% and 80% of this protein, depending on the dose.

And another drug, only known as CTX611, is demonstrating strong efficacy as a treatment for thromboembolic and cardiovascular indications, with pivotal phase 2 trial updates anticipated before the end of this year, along with a handful of other developmental updates.

These updates could rekindle bullish sentiment simply by reminding investors that the company is working on profit centers other than Casgevy.

3. It's a drug development platform with enormous potential

Finally, look beyond Casgevy, CTX310, and CTX611 at the underlying biotechnology itself. CRISPR Therapeutics' well-patented CRISPR/Cas9 approach to editing genetic code has nearly unlimited possibilities as a drug development platform. It's just a matter of determining which opportunities are most promising and putting its $2.3 billion worth of accessible liquidity to work.

To this end, Precedence Research believes the global CRISPR-based gene-editing drug market is poised to grow at an average annual rate of 12.9% through 2035, reaching nearly $15 billion. Given that the company was co-founded by the geneticist who won a Nobel Prize for this very science, CRISPR Therapeutics is obviously well-positioned to capture at least its fair share of this growth.

It could also be an acquisition target, though that alone is never a sufficient reason to buy or hold a speculative stock. In this instance, there are more than enough other reasons.

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James Brumley has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Vertex Pharmaceuticals. The Motley Fool recommends CRISPR Therapeutics. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.