Intellia Therapeutics and SparingVision Announce Strategic Collaboration to Develop Novel Ocular Therapies Using CRISPR/Cas9 Technology

Intellia Therapeutics, a genome editing company developing curative therapeutics using clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)-associated protein-9 (CRISPR/Cas9), announced a strategic collaboration with SparingVision, a genomic company developing treatments for ocular diseases, on Oct. 13th, 2021, in a press release. The goal of this partnership is to develop novel genomic medicines for the treatment of ocular diseases using CRISPR/Cas9 technology.

Intellia will grant SparingVision exclusive rights to Intellia’s proprietary in-vivo CRISPR/Cas9-based genome editing technology for up to three ocular targets that address significant unmet medical need. SparingVision will lead and fund the preclinical and clinical development for the genome-editing product candidates. Both parties will research and develop novel self-inactivating adeno-associated viruses (AAV) vector and lipid-nanoparticle (LNP)-based approaches to address delivery of CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing reagents to the retina.

Per the terms of the agreement, Intellia will receive a 10% equity ownership in SparingVision. Additionally, the company will be eligible to receive certain milestone payments of approximately $200 million per product, in addition to royalties on products arising from this collaboration. The transaction is expected to close by the end of the fourth quarter of 2021.

“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,” said Stéphane Boissel, president and CEO, SparingVision, in the press release. “We look forward to working together with the shared goal of radically changing the treatment of blinding ocular diseases.”

“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,” said John Leonard, president and CEO, Intellia, in a press release. “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.”

Source: Intellia Therapeutics