Shire pays Sangamo US$13m to develop haemophilia drugs
Allows Shire to expand its pipeline into therapeutics for genetic disorders
Shire, a global specialist biopharmaceutical company, has entered into a collaboration and licensing agreement with US-based gene therapy company Sangamo BioSciences to develop therapeutics for haemophilia and other monogenic diseases based on Sangamo’s zinc finger DNA-binding protein (ZFP) technology.
Under the agreement, Dublin, Ireland-based Shire will receive exclusive worldwide rights to ZFP Therapeutics designed to target four genes, which will be used to investigate therapies for haemophilia A and B. The firm also gains the right to designate three additional gene targets.
Sangamo is responsible for all activities through to submission of Investigational New Drug (IND) Applications and European Clinical Trial Applications (CTA) for each product.
Shire will handle clinical development and commercialisation of products and pay Sangamo US$13m upfront followed by research, regulatory, development and commercial milestone payments, and royalties on product sales.
Edward Lanphier, Sangamo’s president and chief executive said: ‘This alliance is further validation of our ZFP platform as a transformative technology for the development of novel therapeutics, which have the potential to revolutionise the treatment of a wide range of genetic diseases.’
