Carmine Therapeutics teams up with Takeda for non-viral gene therapies
July 10, 2020 | Friday | News
Carmine Therapeutics and Takeda Collaborate to Discover and Develop Rare Disease Gene Therapies Using Novel Red Blood Cell Extracellular Vesicles Platform
Image credit- Carmine Therapeutics
Singapore based startup Carmine Therapeutics has announced that it has signed a research collaboration agreement with Japanese firm Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited o discover, develop and commercialize transformative non-viral gene therapies for two rare disease targets using Carmine’s REGENT(TM) technology, based on red blood cell extracellular vesicles. In addition, Takeda has committed a $5M convertible loan in support of the development of Carmine’s novel REGENT™ platform.
Under the terms of the agreement, Carmine will receive an upfront payment, research funding support, and is eligible for over $900M in total milestone payments plus tiered royalties.
Takeda has an option to license the programs following the completion of pre-clinical proof of concept studies and would be responsible for clinical development and commercialization.
Carmine Therapeutics is pioneering a novel class of therapeutics based on its REGENT(TM) technology which leverages red blood cell extracellular vesicles (RBCEVs), first published in Nature Communications in 2018.
An initial focus is non-viral gene therapies. Compared to adeno-associated virus (AAV)-based gene therapy, RBCEV-based gene therapy has the potential for repeat dosing, a significantly larger transgene payload capacity in excess of 11KB, and enhanced bio-distribution in selected tissues through RBCEV surface modification.
