Baxalta Inc has entered the gene editing field with an agreement to work with Precision BioSciences on cancer therapies using engineered immune cells. The collaboration was announced a little more than a month after Baxalta agreed to be acquired by Shire Plc in a deal valued at $32 billion.
A project aimed at improving the properties of adeno-associated viral (AAV) vectors for use in gene therapy has been launched in the UK by Cobra Biologics Ltd, a contract research group, and the Center for Process Innovation, a UK government funded entity.
UK-based Oxford BioMedica Plc is raising £8.1 million with a fully underwritten share placement to finance the expansion of its lentiviral vector manufacturing capacity and advance the clinical development of its gene therapy portfolio.
After discovering a way to produce insulin-producing beta cells from stem cells, US scientists have now shown that they can encapsulate these cells in an alginate and safely transplant them into mice. Moreover, the transplanted cells were shown to produce insulin and maintain blood glucose levels in the mice for 174 days.
A product that is currently used to treat burns has now been approved in the US for certain diabetic foot ulcers. It is a matrix which consists of silicone, cow collagen and shark cartilage and is placed over the ulcer providing an environment for new skin and tissue to regenerate and heal the wound.
An experimental gene therapy administered to a small group of elderly patients with wet age-related macular degeneration has been shown to be safe, and showed promise as a long-term treatment option for the disease, according to a paper in The Lancet.
A candidate gene therapy for haemophilia B developed by scientists at University College London (UCL) was so effective in a Phase 1/2 study that Syncona LLP has decided to start a new company to commercialise it.
Following news in the UK in early November that a one-year-old baby girl with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL ) has been put into remission by UCART19, an unapproved therapy that required special permission to use, Laboratoires Servier acquired exclusive worldwide rights to the product and promptly did a deal with Pfizer Inc for the drug’s potential commercialisation.
NightstaRx Ltd, a 2014 spinout from the University of Oxford, has raised $35 million in a Series B financing round to further develop a candidate gene therapy for choroideremia, an inherited form of progressive blindness.
France-based TxCell SA plans to outsource the manufacture of its experimental cell therapies, and make new investments in process development to increase efficiencies and make way for the introduction of a second technology platform using engineered regulatory T cells.