Intellia Therapeutics, and SparingVision have entered into a strategic collaboration to develop new genomic medicines making use of CRISPR/Cas9 technology to treat ocular diseases.
A clinical-stage genome editing company, Intellia Therapeutics is focused on developing curative therapeutics using CRISPR/Cas9 technology both in vivo and ex vivo.
SparingVision is a genomic medicine firm with focus on developing treatments for ocular diseases.
Under this collaboration, Intellia will give exclusive rights to SparingVision to its in vivo CRISPR/Cas9-based genome editing technology for up to three ocular targets addressing diseases.
SparingVision will be responsible for leading and funding the preclinical and clinical development for the genome editing product candidates.
Furthermore, the firms will research and develop new self-inactivating AAV vectors and LNP-based approaches to address CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing reagents delivery to the retina.
Intellia, as part of the licensing agreement, will get a 10% equity ownership stake in SparingVision.
Additionally, it will also be eligible to get some development and commercial milestone payments of around $200m per product in addition to royalties on potential future sales of products arising from the collaboration.
Intellia may also choose to exercise an option to get the commercialization rights in the US for product candidates arising from two of three collaboration targets.
For those product candidates that Intellia chooses to exercise the option, it will have to pay an opt-in fee, reimburse some costs, share in 50% of development costs and pay royalties to SparingVision on sales in the US.
It will also maintain the ability to tap technology advances made under this collaboration for any targets beyond the partnership.
SparingVision president and CEO Stéphane Boissel said: “SparingVision’s aim has always been to disrupt the ophthalmology field by using cutting-edge technologies to address areas of significant unmet need. This collaboration with Intellia marks a pivotal moment in this mission and is highly complementary to our already mature and growing pipeline of unique mutation-agnostic gene therapies. Intellia is the first company in history to present clinical data supporting precision editing of a disease-causing gene within the body following a single, systemic dose of CRISPR/Cas9 and we are honored to have been selected as a strategic partner. We look forward to working together with the shared goal of radically changing the treatment of blinding ocular diseases.”
Intellia president and CEO John Leonard said: “Intellia has been a pioneer in utilizing CRISPR/Cas9 technology to develop potentially curative treatments for genetic diseases. The announcement is another step forward in more fully leveraging the power of our genome editing technology to address diseases inadequately treated with existing medicines.
“We have been thoroughly impressed with the team at SparingVision, particularly regarding their unparalleled understanding of retinal diseases and track-record for developing novel therapies for patients with ocular diseases. We believe SparingVision will be an excellent partner to expand our genome editing capabilities into the field of ophthalmology and we look forward to our new partnership.”
The transaction, which is subject to certain closing conditions, is expected to complete in Q4 2021.