Sangamo Therapeutics partners with Gilead Sciences in a new $3bn deal

Sangamo Therapeutics, Inc has signed a new deal with Gilead Sciences to further its developments within oncology. Its ground-breaking science into genomic therapies have been seen to transform patients lives using technologies in genome editing, gene therapy, gene regulation and cell therapy.

Biopharma company Gilead Sciences is set to take advantage of Sangamo Therapeutics’ technologies in a $3bn deal, where it will utilise the company’s gene editing tools in order to target disease-causing genes directly, according to Reuters.

Subsidiary of Gilead Sciences, Kit Pharma, will also target zinc finger nucleases (ZFN) through Sangamo’s platforms. This will further support the creation of therapies within oncology.

Under the terms of the agreement, Sangamo will receive an upfront payment of $150mn and is eligible to receive up to $3bn in potential payments, aggregated across 10 or more products utilising Sangamo’s technology.

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Sangamo will also receive tiered royalties on sales of potential future products resulting from the collaboration. Kite will be responsible for all development, manufacturing and commercialisation of products under the collaboration, and will be responsible for agreed upon expenses incurred by Sangamo.

“The emergence of gene editing as a tool to edit immune cells holds promise in the development of therapies with potentially improved safety, efficacy and efficiency,” said John F. Milligan, PhD, Gilead’s President and Chief Executive Officer.

“We believe Sangamo’s zinc finger nucleases provide the optimal gene editing platform, and we look forward to working with Sangamo to accelerate our efforts to develop next-generation autologous cell therapies, as well as allogeneic treatments that can be accessed more conveniently in the hospital setting for people living with cancer.”

Sangamo have recently released its fourth quarter results for 2017. Its collaborations with Pfizer and Bioverativ, has seen it gain significant revenue of over $13mn, compared with $8.9mn in the same period of 2016.