Today, a brief rundown of news involving Sangamo Therapeutics and Serapha Bio, as well as updates from Merck KGaA, Sanofi and CARsgen Therapeutics that you may have missed.
Sangamo Therapeutics, a decades-old pioneer of a gene editing technique called zinc fingers, has filed for bankruptcy and will sell its assets. The biotechnology company announced a pair of deals Tuesday that could hand certain gene editing tools as well as an experimental prion disease treatment to Eli Lilly, and a Fabry disease therapy that’s nearing regulatory approval to Astellas Pharma. Lilly and Astellas will serve as lead bidders in a court-supervised auction that will also involve other Sangamo assets, such as experimental cell therapies and gene editing treatments for chronic pain and hemophilia A. Sangamo has restructured, lost partnerships, and switched up development plans multiple times over the years. It hasn’t brought a product to market.
A new company built around gene editing prospects from China has received a sizable funding commitment to fuel its push to Wall Street. The company, Serapha Bio, will go public via a reverse merger with struggling cancer drugmaker Boundless Bio after having secured $230 million in funding from an investor syndicate led by RA Capital Management and RTW Investments. Serapha is developing a gene editing treatment for alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency that it licensed from Shanghai-based Yoltech Therapeutics and that’s currently in an investigator-initiated trial there. The therapy is a competitor to a treatment from Beam Therapeutics that’s in advanced clinical development.
Merck KGaA and Versant Ventures have teamed to launch a new startup developing treatments for rare genetic heart diseases. Called Saturnus Bio, the biotech is starting out with a “build-to-buy” deal in place, through which Merck will fund research and support development in return for exclusive rights to acquire the company at a pre-negotiated price. Merck is providing $50 million in initial financing and will help the company advance targeted treatments for unspecified “rare mono-genetic cardiomyopathies,” according to a Tuesday statement.
Sanofi has nabbed the first approval for a multiple sclerosis drug it acquired in multibillion-dollar deal six years ago. European regulators on Tuesday officially cleared Cenrifki, long known as tolebrutinib, for use in certain people with the secondary progressive form of multiple sclerosis. Cenrifki is part of a newer class of “BTK inhibitors” that are able to penetrate the brain and being positioned as autoimmune disease treatments. Study results have been mixed, however, and the Food and Drug Administration rejected an application from Sanofi earlier this year after questioning the drug’s benefits and safety profile.
Shanghai-based CARsgen Therapeutics has claimed the world’s first regulatory clearance of a CAR-T therapy for solid tumors. According to CARsgen, drug evaluators in China have approved use of a therapy called satri-cel for certain gastric tumors expressing the protein Claudin18.2. Study results published in The Lancet confirmed benefits on tumor progression and survival among patients with advanced, heavily pretreated gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma. U.S. regulators in 2024 approved a different kind of cell therapy, from Adaptimmune, for a rare solid tumor found in soft tissue.
