Harrinton's business was incorporated in Delaware in May 2025 under the name Preventive Medicine PBC. As a public benefit corporation, it is organized to put its public mission before profit. “If our research shows [heritable genome editing] cannot be done safely, this finding is equally valuable to the scientific community and society,” Harrington wrote in his post.
Harrington is a co-founder of Mammoth Biosciences, a gene editing company that makes drugs for adults, and remains a member of its board of directors.
In recent months, Preventive has sought endorsements from leading experts in the field of genome editing, but has received only one, according to the report, from Paula Amato, a reproductive health physician at Oregon Health Sciences University, who said she has agreed to serve as a consultant to the company.
Amato is part of a US team that is researching embryo editing in the country. since 2017, and she promoted technology as a way to increase the success of IVF. This could be true if editing could correct abnormal embryos, making them more available for use in attempts to induce pregnancy.
It remains unclear where Preventive's funding comes from. Harrington said the $30 million came from “private funders who share our commitment to conducting this research responsibly.” But he declined to name those investors other than SciFounders, the venture capital firm he runs with his personal and business partner Matt Krisiloff, the CEO of a biotech company. Conceptwhich aims to create human eggs from stem cells.
This is another technology that could change reproduction if it works. Krisiloff is listed as a member of Preventive's founding team.
The idea of editing babies is getting more and more attention from people in the cryptocurrency business. They include Brian Armstrong, the billionaire founder of Coinbase, who hosted a series of informal dinners to discuss the technology (which Harrington attended). Armstrong had previously claimed that “the time is right” for a startup in the area.
