Cathie Wood drops $1.3 million on healthcare stock

Cathie Wood has seldom shied away from letting everyone know where she believes the next wave of market-changing businesses will come from.

Though ARK Invest’s daily trades spark a ton of excitement, its latest buying in CRISPR Therapeutics (CRSP) is far from being a sudden shift. 

The speculative healthcare stock specializes in gene editing, a technology that’s a key component of Wood’s vision for transformational innovation.

Think of gene editing the way investors thought of the internet back in the 90s. 

Early and messy, but with tremendous potential to quietly rewire entire industries. For Wood, genomics is essentially a toolbox that can effectively change how diseases are treated, much like software has changed how businesses operate.

As Cathie Wood has said, 

Hence, across Cathie Wood’s ARK ETFs combined, CRISPR makes up roughly 3.81% of assets, indicating her latest buying spree is a steady doubling down on a long-term vision.

ARK Invest doubles down on a familiar biotech bet

CRISPR Therapeutics' stock headlined Wood’s holiday-week trading. 

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On Friday, December 26, ARK acquired 23,170 shares of CRISPR, spending over $1.3 million. 

The purchases were split across ETFs, with 19,965 shares added to ARKK and 3,205 shares added to ARKG.

That move wasn’t isolated, though. 

In the same week, ARK bought 10,353 CRISPR shares on Wednesday, worth nearly $584,530, followed by an even bigger bet on Tuesday, when it snapped up 43,333 shares for approximately $2.51 million. 

In total, ARK loaded up on over 76,800 shares of CRISPR in just three trading days.

For more color, CRISPR technology basically works like a robust word processor for DNA. It uses a guide RNA to locate a specific genetic “sentence,” then an enzyme cuts it, allowing the cell to repair or rewrite it. 

For diseases that are caused by a specific faulty gene, that could mean fixing the problem at its core instead of just managing symptoms.

Other notable ARK trades that week:

• Tuesday: Bought 333,370 shares of Pacific Biosciences for $606,733
• Wednesday: Bought 101,637 shares of WeRide for $901,520
• Wednesday: Sold 101 shares of Ibotta for $2,173

CRISPR still trades on promise, not profits

CRISPR Therapeutics occupies a position that many consider an uncomfortable middle ground for investors. 

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The company isn’t strictly pre-revenue, but still early-commercial in the way investors usually mean.

As per its latest 10-Q, the company posted just $2.65 million in grant-related sales for the first nine months of 2025, with no collaboration revenue during that period.

Nevertheless, it boasts a robust balance sheet. 

As per its latest quarterly results, CRISPR posted a whopping $1.9 billion in its cash till, offering it sufficient room to operate without immediate financing pressure.

The market has already priced in  a ton of optimism. 

Since its October 2016 IPO at $14, CRSP shares have surged to $55.08, valuing the business at nearly $5.3 billion. 

That’s still a far cry from the pandemic highs of $210.04 it achieved on January 14, 2021.

2025 turned out to be a solid year for CRISPR stock, which is up 40% year to date, easily beating the S&P 500’s 18% gain and underscoring Cathie Wood’s preference for growth stocks.

A breakthrough that finally left the lab

CRISPR Therapeutics’ biggest breakthrough so far is exa-cel (CASGEVY), the first CRISPR/Cas9 gene-edited therapy for patients with sickle cell disease and transfusion-dependent beta thalassemia.

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That matters a great deal because it’s where gene editing evolved from theory into real-world medicine, earning FDA approval in the U.S. on December 8, 2023.

Under its amended collaboration, Vertex Pharmaceuticals is leading global development, manufacturing, and commercialization. 

Expenses and profits are split 60/40, with Vertex taking a bigger slice in handling execution.

The size of the opportunity is massive

It’s imperative to understand that CRISPR isn’t just one market but like a toolbox that feeds multiple end markets:

• Genetic diseases (single-gene disorders are the obvious early targets)
• Cell therapies (editing immune cells in fighting cancer/autoimmune disease)
• Cardiometabolic (in-vivo editing approaches geared towards one-time treatments)
• Diagnostics and research tools (fast-growing “picks and shovels”) 

For each end market, the market sizes are substantial, with forecasts varying depending on the scope of inclusion.

For instance, Fortune Business Insights estimates that the genome editing market could surge from $9.78 billion in 2024 to a whopping $22.874 billion by 2032.

Also, here are consensus analyst revenue estimates for CRISPR Therapeutics:

• 2025: $6.12 million
• 2026: $123.42 million
• 2027: $289.83 million
• 2028: $822.48 million
• 2029: $2.30 billion
• 2030: $6.50 billion

Source: Seeking Alpha

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