Little more than a year ago, when COVID-19 lockdowns began, turned out to be a prime time for finding the right funding and partners. That’s when privately held Capsigen Inc. was on a search that ended with a Biogen Inc. deal that could add up to $1.3 billion.
The allocation of capital to the build-out of next-generation gene therapies continues apace. Dyno Therapeutics Inc., a leader in applying artificial intelligence to advanced capsid engineering, raised $100 million in a series A round to fund its expansion and that of its Capsidmap platform.
Capsida Biotherapeutics Inc., a gene therapy startup focused on advanced capsid engineering to generate tissue-selective vectors, emerged from stealth with $50 million in series A funding and another $90 million in cash from a strategic collaboration and option agreement in neurodegenerative disease with Abbvie Inc.
Scientists working at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill reported in the Oct. 21, 2020, issue of Nature on the successful development of a one-time specific sequence-directed gene therapy approach using the combination of AAV with CRISPR technology that successfully prevented the presentation of Angelman syndrome throughout the lifetime of a mouse model.
Novartis AG is expanding its position in the optogenetics space with the acquisition of Vedere Bio Inc., bringing with it a program aimed at vision loss prevention and treatment. Shareholders of Vedere, created in June 2019 through the Atlas Venture incubator, received $150 million up front and are eligible for up to $130 million in milestone payments, bringing the total to $280 million.
Privately held Dyno Therapeutics Inc., an early stage biotech company applying artificial intelligence to gene therapy, entered a collaboration and license agreement with Spark Therapeutics Inc. that could bring Dyno milestone payments exceeding $1.8 billion.
Both Solid Biosciences Inc. and Pfizer Inc. got lifts to their Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) programs from the FDA as the agency released a clinical hold and awarded a fast track designation to their respective adeno-associated viral (AAV) programs.
DUBLIN – Dyno Therapeutics Inc., an early stage gene therapy firm applying artificial intelligence to advanced capsid engineering, has entered partnerships with Novartis AG and Sarepta Therapeutics Inc., in ophthalmic indications and muscle diseases, respectively, which have over $2 billion in biobucks attached.
Weeks after raising an oversubscribed $60 million series A, Affinia Therapeutics Inc., of Waltham, Mass., is collaborating with Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. in a far larger deal, one potentially worth more than $1.6 billion.
Privately held Swanbio Therapeutics Inc., of Bala Cynwyd, Pa., completed a $52 million expanded series A financing designed to boost the company’s R&D of adeno-associated virus (AAV)-based gene therapies to treat adrenomyeloneuropathy (AMN) and other rare, monogenic neurological diseases.
