Scribe Therapeutics and Sanofi have expanded their partnership to progress the development of in vivo genetic therapies to treat sickle cell and other genomic diseases.
Sanofi will obtain an exclusive licence for the usage of the CRISPR X-Editing (XE) genome editing technologies of Scribe to develop in vivo therapies.
The latest in vivo partnership will use CRISPR XE, along with Sanofi's expertise in non-viral delivery, towards an initial target of treating sickle cell disease.
Sanofi will make an upfront payment of $40m to Scribe, followed by milestone payments of $1.2bn on meeting specific development and sales goals and royalty payments on future net product sales resulting from the deal.
Scribe also holds the right to choose to share development expenses and activities. This will include joint promotion and the splitting of profit and loss in the US on one future programme.
The parties entered a partnership to develop cell therapies for treating cancer in September 2022.
Scribe Therapeutics co-founder and CEO Benjamin Oakes stated: “We are continually impressed by the expertise, rigour and urgency that Sanofi has brought to our existing ex vivo collaboration, as well as their rapid advancements and innovation in non-viral delivery technologies. Now, we are thrilled to expand our work together into new areas of high unmet need.
“This in vivo collaboration further demonstrates the versatility of Scribe’s design-based approaches to CRISPR, which enable greater activity, specificity and deliverability, ultimately accelerating the development of life-changing therapeutics.”
