Pittsburgh-based Avista Therapeutics announced Tuesday a partnership with Roche to develop novel AAV gene therapy vectors for the eyes.
The partnership is designed to apply Avista’s single-cell adeno-associated virus (AAV) engineering (scAAVengr) platform technology to develop intravitreal AAV capsids matching a capsids profile defined by Roche. As part of the partnership, Roche will evaluate and license the novel capsids from Avista and will be responsible for conducting preclinical, clinical, and commercialization activities for gene therapy programs using the capsids. The novel capsids will be distinct from Avista’s internal pipeline, the companies said.
“We are excited to enter into this collaboration with Roche, a global leader in health care,” said Robert Lin, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Avista Therapeutics. “This collaboration will complement our in-house pipeline and will accelerate the delivery of transformative therapies to patients.”
As part of the agreement, Avista will receive $7.5 million upfront and additional payments during research if successful, as well as clinical and sales milestone payments and royalties. The potential deal may value more than $1 billion, officials said.
“Traditional therapies for retinal dystrophies address only symptoms and complications, neglecting the underlying biology of the diseases, and while current vector technologies hold promise, they have been greatly limited in their ability to target key cell types across the retina,” Lin, who is also a vice president at University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine (UPMC) Enterprises, the innovation, venture capital, and commercialization arm of UPMC. “Avista was founded to solve this problem, and our innovative scAAVengr platform allows us to deliver gene therapy payloads through intravitreal injection to treat a full range of retinal diseases with reduced immunogenicity.”