Preventive Medicine PBC, founded by Harrington in May 2025 and incorporated in Delaware, operates as a public-benefit corporation with the primary goal of prioritizing its public mission over profits. Harrington noted in a statement that if research indicates that heritable genome editing is unsafe, this finding would still hold significant value for both the scientific community and society.
Harrington is also a co-founder and current board member of Mammoth Biosciences, a gene-editing company focusing on the development of therapies for adults. Recently, Preventive has sought endorsements from prominent figures in genome editing. To date, it has secured only one endorsement from Paula Amato, a fertility expert at Oregon Health Sciences University, who has agreed to serve as an advisor. Amato has been involved in US research on embryo editing since 2017 and has advocated for the technology, suggesting it could improve the success rates of in vitro fertilization (IVF) by correcting abnormalities in embryos.
The funding sources for Preventive remain ambiguous. Harrington disclosed that $30 million was raised from private investors committed to responsible research, but he did not provide further details about these funders, except for SciFounders, a venture firm he co-runs with Matt Krisiloff, CEO of the biotech company Conception. This company aims to develop human eggs from stem cells, a potentially transformative technology in reproduction.
Interest in edited babies has emerged among some figures in the cryptocurrency sector, including Brian Armstrong, the founder of Coinbase. Armstrong has hosted several informal discussions about this technology, which Harrington attended, and he has previously suggested that the timing is appropriate for a startup focused on this area.
Source: https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/10/31/1127461/heres-the-latest-company-planning-for-gene-edited-babies/