Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated and Arbor Biotechnologies (Arbor) announced a new collaboration to enhance efforts in developing ex vivo engineered cell therapies, using Arbor’s proprietary CRISPR gene-editing technology for select diseases. The new agreement between Arbor and Vertex builds upon the companies’ first partnership established in 2018. Under this new partnership, Vertex will receive rights to use Arbor’s technology to research and develop ex vivo engineered cell therapies towards Vertex’s goal of generating fully differentiated, insulin-producing hypoimmune islet cells for the treatment of type 1 diabetes, for next-generation approaches in sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia, and for the treatment of other diseases.