Moderna and Life Edit Therapeutics, an ElevateBio company, have entered into a strategic collaboration aimed at discovering and developing in vivo mRNA gene editing therapies for hard-to-treat diseases.
The partnership will combine Life Edit’s suite of gene editing technologies with Moderna’s mRNA platform to advance therapies against a select set of therapeutic targets.
Under the terms of the agreement, both companies will collaborate on research and preclinical studies funded by Moderna and, if it chooses to exercise its optioning rights for these targets, the mRNA company will assume responsibility for further development, manufacturing and commercialisation.
While specific financial details have not been disclosed, Life Edit will receive an upfront payment from Moderna and will be eligible for certain milestone payments for each selected target, as well as tiered royalties on global net sales.
Commenting on the recent partnership, Eric Huang, general manager and chief scientific officer of Moderna Genomics, said: “Through our collaboration with Life Edit, we hope to harness the power of gene editing technologies as part of our broader research and development engine, helping to advance our mission and deliver on the promise of mRNA.”
Life Edit’s gene editing platform includes a large library of base editors and RNA-guided nucleases, which are smaller in size when compared to conventional nucleases, potentially allowing for greater versatility for delivery.
The company’s nuclease collection features a range of protospacer adjacent motifs that enable base editing at more sites than any one nuclease could achieve.
Mitchell Finer, Life Edit’s chief executive officer, and president of R&D at ElevateBio, said: “This collaboration between Life Edit and Moderna demonstrates the strength of our respective technologies to advance programmable medicines to more specifically target disease.
“Our novel editing systems have the potential to precisely modify gene targets for both in vivo and ex vivo therapeutic development.”
Moderna’s partnership with Life Edit is not the company’s first of the year, after it announced a partnership in January with cancer-focused drug developer CytomX Therapeutics to create investigational mRNA-based conditionally-activated therapies for a wide range of diseases.
The company also said at the start of the year that it will be acquiring Japan-based DNA supplier OriCiro Genomics K.K for $85m, marking its first acquisition since its 2010 launch.