Nerai Bioscience: Innovation Driven by Basic Research

"Genetic scissors," as the CRISPR/Cas method is colloquially known, hold great promise in medicine, including in the treatment of rare genetic diseases. However, the capabilities of this method are still limited today—in part because it cannot access all DNA sequences. The UZH spin-off Nerai Bioscience AG aims to address this shortcoming in the foreseeable future.

The young company was born, as CEO Vincent Forster puts it, “from the fortunate convergence” of expertise from three modern disciplines brought by the specialists from the lab of Gerald Schwank, a UZH professor at the Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology: First, the “targeted” evolution of the so-called “CRISPR” editor with high throughput for tailored gene therapy; second, machine learning and AI to further improve the editors. And third, technologies that allow them to be tested for multiple diseases at the same time. According to Foster, Nerai’s editors are designed to be applicable to multiple diseases—a strategy that could one day make personalised therapies more accessible.

The spin-off is currently working to advance its preclinical development and raise seed capital to move its gene therapy platform toward clinical application. The large number of rare and still incurable genetic diseases, which often affect children, motivates the team in its work. Forster hopes that one day such therapies will become so effective and accessible that no disease will be considered “too rare to be cured.”