You may not have noticed, but until last week Monsanto (NYSE:MON) was operating with a very noticeable omission in its research and development arsenal. It’s a wonder it took so long to plug. Perhaps senior management was caught up with a failed bid for Syngenta and its pending merger with Bayer (NASDAQOTH:BAYRY). Perhaps the company was waiting for more clarity in the very public legal dispute over what MIT Technology Review called "[T]he Biggest Biotech Discovery of the Century.”
Whatever the reason for its hesitancy, Monsanto finally decided to announce that it licensed the gene editing tool known as CRISPR from the Broad Institute in Boston. The global license will give researchers at the company the ability to introduce new genetic traits -- or remove unfavorable ones -- from plants in record time and with unparalleled accuracy compared to previous and current methods.
