Abeona Therapeutics Inc. is on the road to filing a BLA with the U.S. FDA after posting positive top-line phase III data in wound healing and also to the bank with a new $35 million private placement financing. The data for EB-101, an autologous cell therapy, came from a pivotal study of treating recessive dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa, an ultra-rare connective tissue disorder. Results showed the study met its two co-primary endpoints in wound healing and for reducing pains in large, chronic wounds caused by the disorder.
“Big genomics” specialist Replay Holdings LLC has unveiled the first of four satellite genomic medicine companies it is forming to apply its high capacity herpes simplex viral (HSV) vector to next generation gene therapies. Eudora Therapeutics will specialize in inherited retinal eye diseases. It arrives on the scene with programs targeted at retinitis pigmentosa, Stargardt disease and Usher syndrome type 1B.
Astellas Pharma Inc. has invested $50 million in Taysha Gene Therapies Inc. in exchange for 15% of the company and exclusive options to in-license Taysha’s lead gene therapy candidates, TSHA-102 for Rett syndrome and TSHA-120 for giant axonal neuropathy.
The extraordinary proliferation of different genetic therapeutic modalities in the last decade has not been matched by a commensurate flourishing of delivery technologies. The liver is the natural destination for many carriers when administered systemically. But getting beyond the liver to other organ systems has proven to be a significant challenge. Only a tiny percentage of carriers – even those with targeting moieties – escape first pass metabolism in the liver and reach their target destination. “The key issue is getting out of the liver,” Nessan Bermingham, founder and interim CEO of Liberate Bio, Inc., told BioWorld. “That’s not a trivial problem.”
The volatile gene therapy space is getting a boost with Eli Lilly and Co.’s acquisition of Akouos Inc., which only a month before had received the first IND from the U.S. FDA for an adeno-associated virus (AAV)-based hearing loss treatment. Lilly plans to pay about $610 million for the company to get at AK-OTOF, Akouos’ lead candidate for treating hearing loss due to mutations in the otoferlin gene.
Decibel Therapeutics Inc. has received clearance from the FDA for its IND application to initiate a phase I/II trial of DB-OTO in pediatric patients, potentially in infants younger than 2 years of age.
Researchers from Meiragtx Ltd. presented preclinical data on a new and optimized gene therapy based on a mini ATP7B gene for the potential treatment of Wilson’s disease (WD), a rare (1:30,000) autosomal recessive genetic disease caused by loss-of-function mutations in ATP7B, leading to a pathologically high amount of copper in the liver and brain.
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