Ark Invest on Monday bought more than 180,000 shares of Crispr Therapeutics (CRSP) -), spread across Ark's Genomic Revolution ETF and its flagship Innovation ETF. The purchase, based on Crispr's Monday closing price of $60.28 per share, was valued at roughly $11.1 million.
Ark Innovation, responsible for the bulk of the purchase, alone snapped up 151,090 shares of the gene-editing company, boosting the fund's total holding to 5.8 million shares, valued at nearly $350 million and weighted at 4.17% of the ETF.
Ark's Crispr holding is now the seventh-largest holding in its Innovation portfolio, which is led still by large holdings in Coinbase (COIN) -), Roku (ROKU) -) and UIPath (PATH) -). Ark's Tesla (TSLA) -) holding, now weighted at only 7.5% of the fund, has fallen to fourth place.
Related: Meet the biotech company Cathie Wood bought half a million shares of this month
The purchase comes just a few days after Crispr was granted approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its Casgevy gene-edited therapy for the treatment of sickle cell disease.
This marks the first-ever approval of a Crispr-based gene-editing therapy in the U.S.
The company said in a statement that approximately 16,000 patients — ages 12 and up — are now eligible for a one-time treatment that offers a "functional cure" of the disease.
Vertex Pharmaceuticals, a partner of Crispr's on this project, said that it will set up authorized treatment centers at experienced hospitals to administer the treatment. The company has so far activated nine such centers at hospitals across the country.
"It is a watershed moment in the history of biomedicine and a great day for patients suffering from sickle cell disease," CEO Samarth Kulkarni told CNBC Monday. "We're excited about not just this approval, but everything else in our pipeline that's coming behind it."
"We think this is a very scalable platform that can apply to many diseases," he added.
Related: Cathie Wood explains why she cut Ark's Tesla holding
The investment value of FDA approval
Despite the approval of the treatment, Crispr's stock has been falling since the announcement.
In a Monday note, TD Cowen downgraded Crispr to underperform, lowering its price target to $30 a share. The firm warned that, despite its FDA approval, the Casgevy treatment doesn't represent enough of a revenue opportunity to justify its current stock price.
Truist Securities, likewise, cut its price target from $220 to $160.
Several analysts, however, including from such firms as Barclays and Citigroup, boosted their price targets following the FDA approval.
Crispr on Nov. 6 reported a $112.2 million net loss for the third quarter, compared to its year-ago net loss of $174.5 million. The company said in a statement that it is in the midst of clinical trials for four additional treatments.
Shares of Crispr, up 48% for the year, spiked hard throughout November. The stock jumped from an Oct. 31 price of $38.93 to a 52-week high of $76.97, which it achieved on Dec. 8.
But from those recently-achieved highs, the stock has fallen.
Crispr shares ticked down again Tuesday morning, now trading slightly below $60 per share.
Related: Cathie Wood snaps up 1.5 million shares of a tech stock that fell hard this week
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