this week inside the world of crisper. gene-editing that could change the world. plus, can you make money doing the right thing? we take a look at venture capitol investment in the environment as part of nbc's climate in crisis. how pharmaceutical start up convinced men to pay more through marketing. our reporters, kristen b. brown from bloomberg and our business insider, aaron broadway, this week on "press:here." >> good morning everyone, i am scott mcgrew. we are all aware that tech in

silicon valley is more about other things of software and services. san francisco igm launched the successful ipo creating $125 million. the company is developing antibodies to treat blood thinners. biotech is not my area of experti expertise. this morning i would like to talk about genomic research and i would like to talk about the positive side of it. crisper will let us do this. you are looking at inside the lab of the company created by trevor martin. he's joined by two expert in the field of medic kristin brown of bloomberg and

aaron broadway. i read that gene sequencing is an equivalent of reading a document and crisper isa process. is that a reasonable place to start in. >> crisper is a tool for programming biology. when you think of our dna is our insides. >> and this has been possible before. i mean we are all hearing about crisper but it is new and the best and most advance way of doing it. >> yes, there has been way to edit this document before. they but suffer from various incidents. when you ed thehe document, yout want that. crisper is the great advancement where you can edit what you are and assessable way.ou can try >> trevor, most people are

fiageno editing tool. that's not what you guys are doing. you are doing something that illustrates the diverse. tell us about crisper. >> crisper can read the code of life toward document and edit it. sometimes you don't want to find and replace. you want to know something is prevalent or absent. you are trying to say do i have strapper? you are not sure if i should take a thut i cerapeutic or not. it is a search engine. instead of a war profiting tool where you can go into google and type what ever you want to find. and then it w dna and rna and it will give you a signal back to fihahi you are t.

that's how we use crisper of the added search engine where we are finding. that's incredibly powerful. >> you are talking about diagnostic, right? >> exactly. >> can you talk a little bit about that? >> we are excited of where healthcare is headed. there is this concept out there of personalized medicine. we are hugely in verse this that concept. instead of one side in all treatments what if you can taylor these two individual patients and that means the diagnostic is critical. we are doubling down where diagnostic are driviing treatments efficiency. >> i heard that's a huge advance in medicine and curing cancer is a huge advancement. >> the idea that everyone respond to every different drugs slightly differently. and doctors trying to dial in

dose but being able to read how a person is built would allow these medicines to be perfect just for you. >> right. >> we are seeing this today with things like companion diagnostic. you are using some sort of information on the diagnostic side that's effective for them or not. >> what kind of diagnostics will you be looking into today? would you be looking at the flu or a pregnancy test, what kind of diagnosing? >> we see it as a platform for all sorts of diagnostic. we are excited about helping others as well as leveraging technology so we can empower the companion diagnostic. if there is specific or code of life is going to respond well

whatever therapeutic offering. for example, what if you are trying to detect of a certain micro in your farm and that's going to help you grow your crops. >> you think you have a fever, what will that look like? how will people use these at home? >> for us accessibility is a big focus. there is a great diagnostic technologi technology that you can access at the hospital and you have to wait for a long time and you have professionals and people working together to create a certain results. what we are excited about of this search engine is taking diagnostic results that's only assessable in a hospital environment and bringing in outside of that hospital environment in areas like clinic. >> i know you have written home

d dynast diagnostic dna testing. i am sure there will be the fda or who's responsible to make sure everyone is following the rules. >> if you are doing diagnostic for an illness, we have seen the fda stepped in because they are diagnosing disease risk or other companies looking for wellness thing. >> it was more casual so it wasless harmful so maybe they were not doing the data the way they should. >> right, it was a lifestyle product. >> absolutely. >> rigorous number one. in our opinion, whether it is wellness. >> i know you believe in it but who else believes in it? >> organizations like the fda and for a company like us, we

embrace that process. we have decided that we have certain standards that we want to adhere to. this is a product that's rigorous and perspective and you want to have that data. >> i can see being in favor of . trying to do it right, you have nothing to fear. >> exactly. >> fda is not a fast moving frame. what is your timeline look like as far as getting these diagnostics we are talking about from the lab into somebody' or curious who your target customers are? are you looking at doctors or researchers or more consumers? >> we are casting a broad net in terms of the potential market. we are excited of the potential of technology. and in terms of the timeline, we want to have this product in a matter of years and not decades. you will hear about technology and ten years later, oh, what

happened. when is that going to come out. >> trevor, i got a minute left. talk about your cofounder, jennifer, this gives you instant credibility in the genetics. >> jennifer is fantastic. >> but, continue. >> i think really what's exciting to have jennifer on the team is the vision of where crisper is headed. is it a gene-editing tool or other applications of crisper that we have not thought about yet. she helps us think about the long-term vision of where crisper will be headed 10 or 15 years ago. >> trevor martin is the ceo. we appreciate you being here. >> thanks for having me. >> adventure capitol makes a

buck by doing good. we'll take a look at that when "press:here" continues.

nbc had been talking about climate in crisis. we know the problem, we know some of the solutions. but, doing good for the environment and profit can conflict. we do live in a capitol society

after all. it is classic case of an oil in the tree. the environmentalist wants to save the owl and the catalyst wants to cut out the tree. they're investing interesting science to save the world and still return a healthy return to investors. his firm just raised its fifth funding and how much money? >> $725 million. silicon valleyoney money. >> 7 and what million dollars? >> $725 million. >> the e ckey is we take that my and produce a return and give it

back. >> hopefully more than you started with. >> exactly. >> this is not obvious to me. i mean one of the things you are fighting. where is the money in not cutting down. >> obviously, taking a step back, detect in our investment spaces and our theory behind the these is we are tackling some of the hardest global problems using approaches and broader detect and technologies. >> my point is oftentimes what you are investing in is making the world a better place. making the burn place is not a profitable move. but, it is note, it seems for security investment in uber,

right? >> it is not that remarkable, right? adventure capital lis adventure capitalist investing things that's remarkable. there is obvious money there. >> a great example, this is my portfolio planet lab, it launched 200 satellites into orbit and it takes a snapshot of the planet everyday at 10:00 a.m. they were instrumental in atra k tracking. they have other paying commercial customers. that's how you achieve these positive environmental benefits and our benefits for thewle pro. >> you know one of the most interesting things abou your portfolio in biotech right now is you see these companies that are doing agriculture and

they're also doing pharmaceutical and you have a few companies like that, kinkos raised a big round of $4 billion. do you think we need to start thinking about these biological technologies as not industry specific, do we need to change your thinking so we can maximize our potential? >> absolutely. we are small investor of kinkos. one of the thesis that we are platform. ai enables platform where which can look at the genomics and these platform that are applicable in pharmaceutical area and as well as agriculture and a lot of them are, these are substances that works in all sort of all life. >> are there platform technologies that you are most excited about? >> a phenomena one is my

portfolio company, pharmaceutical. they use robotics to look at the shape of disease cells and it uses it to discover new types of drugs. it costs billions of dollars and so many failures along the way. recursion can excel rate this process. >> i would like to ask you about in door agriculture. it is as hot area right now. essentially taking and moving giant farm fields into smaller in door environment and controlling the input, co-2 and water and lights so you can control things like the flavor of the food, great things that you definitely want to do. my biggest question though in cutting out the sun which is

kind of the giant source of energy, how much more expensive is in door than traditional outdoors? >> this references my portfolio plenty, which is a leader in in door agriculture industry. the purpose is to achieve much lower energy as well as less labor and using less water. so in some senses and that's where a lot of the expenses so tou are driving expenses in are in a conventional way. there are over 30 different steps, driving those big practices around and hauling those distribution centers and storing a distribution center oud driving it to thest gres an grow the greens next to the grocery store? >> you can do it in doors. >> the thing i like about show

is learning stuff. >> i didn't know in-door agriculture is a thing. >> it is coming. >> you had invested in a number of agriculture and it makes sense. we all know and when you think about california and largest industry, you quiz someone on it. >> agriculture is very important. i think sometimes we get lost in silicon valley that we just pay attention to northern california and not the iowa of the world whic w actual foodure? >> we feel a tremendous opportunity and the way it is done in thousands of years and plenty of room for innovations. now these technologies are mature and we can use those to disrupt larger industry like

agriculture. a great example is pivot bio. it left corns and wheat fixing it nicely and having to avoid to apply fertilizers. >> what's behindth we can make this. you are interested in the world of agriculture. absolutely. we just feel it is a tremendous opportunity to apply these new foundational technology to disrupted and drive return. and also it is a pretty polluting industry. if you think about just synthetic fertilizer that produces about 10% of global greenhouse gas. if we can make an impact there while making it profitable performers, that's a win-win.

>> does it raise your fit? >> it is our fifth or eighth fund overall. >> krcorrect. >> thank you for being here with us. "press here" will be back in just a minute.

welcome back. i was reading both of your articles, kristen. you wrote articles about there are these new drug companies, it is selling and i will remind you that this is a sunday morning program. various needs or things they need to improve in which it is the real drug. the generic for viagra. it is actual legit, right? >> yes. it is. the company sells other drugs, they're not targeting women, selling them drugs for sexual health and birth controls and all kinds of things, skin care products. >> they're selling it for so much more. if i would go to my doctor to get the erectile dysfunction

drugs, i would pay a lower price. >> right, you are getting a generic and much more conveniently. when i tried to product, it took me four stops on my commute to fill out the application of it all andyo know you would get it the next week packaging. what's most interesting about the company that there are really going to direct to consumers. you are not going to your doctor and saying you know i am having a problem, can you help me solve this. you are going to the website and saying i know i need this drug, let me fill out this online f m form. >> hopefully honestly. >> to see if a doctor thinks i am el viigible.

>> it is surprising to me. we think of it being less expensive. in my cases, the men are paying much higher. >> for the actual drugs and depending where you are getting. it they don't accept health insurance. if you don't have health insurance, it may be a cheaper offer. if you have health insurance, you are definitely paying more. >> they have antianxiety drugs, too? >> it is prescribed. >> is it easier to prescribe off labels? >> off label is when the fda have not approved the drug for a specific use. >> it is not illegal to use the drug. a doctor can prescribe it to you but there is rules if you can market the drug off label. >> using it in a similar way.

>> you have written about this. bring me up to speed. this is the san francisco company. the testing proof was $600 million. >> they filed for bankruptcy recently. it is not looking too great for them. essentially i tried out the product myself also. and found disgusting, i didn't think it was bad growth. >> what is it that i are looking f for? >> the behind is consumer product and clinical product. the consumer product and clinical product are similar. you return a sample of your poop and it is tested and you are told essentially what your micro bio looks like from a general health perspective and if you may be at risk for diseases, serious diseases, irritable

bowels being one of them. >> here comes the fbi, what did they do wrong or allegedly doing wrong? >> the raid is reported raided with varying issues. you take the test and get an update with your results and then you get another update and a few weeks later or months later with your latest results so we found new things and appa six times and apparently each time an um date was run, the customers would be charged $3,000. so we are talking about $18,000 that people are being charged for a tes t diagnose disease. >> you both written about smaller companies that are getting themselves into trouble with you know working the numbers. it is going to be hard for reporters the figure out in that case. >> moving fast and break things does not work in healthcare. i think we are having this moment where a lot of silicon

valley investors see if the age of the computers have become the age of biotech and they twoont g want to get in the line. the company i just wrote about is called origin. investors did not do their due diligence. >> kristen brown and erin broad win are on the and follow the rules. "press:here" will be right back.

that's our show for this week. when we are not working on this show, we are working on a podcast called "sand hill road." the next show will come out on tuesday. you can find "sand hill road" anywhere you find the finest of all podcasts. thank you to all my guests and thank you for making us part of your sunday morning.

to "comunidad del valle," i'm damian trujillo. and today, "los idolos del pueblo," los tigres del norte, right here in our studio, exclusive, on your "comunidad del valle." male announcer: nbc bay area

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