Akin Akinc was scouring his email spam box last summer, looking for a missing message, when he stumbled across an unexpected email from a quite recognizable name: Feng Zhang.
Zhang, one of the leading scientists in the groundbreaking field of genetic editing, had reached out two days prior to discuss a new company he was working on. Since helping to discover CRISPR-Cas9 — often referred to as molecular scissors that can cut into the genome and edit DNA — Zhang has founded at least six companies, worth around $4.6 billion combined.
Zhang was approaching Akinc, the then-head of oncology at Alnylam, about his seventh business: Aera Therapeutics, which launched Thursday with $193 million from ARCH Venture Partners, GV, and Lux Capital. The deal was first reported by Insider.
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