Vigeneron updates gene therapy collab with Daiichi Sankyo

Under the new agreement, Planegg-based AAV specialist ViGeneron GmbH will provide its novel engineered recombinant adeno-associated virus vectors (vgAAVs) to address an undisclosed target of Daiichi Sankyo Company Ltd. in Tokio for the treatment of prevalent eye  diseases. Financial terms were not disclosed. The follow-on collaboration to the 2021 contract allows the companies to create and validate vgAAV-based therapeutic candidates for the undisclosed target through in-vivo animal studies. 

Through a unique and stringent in vivo selection procedure, where an AAV2-based peptide-display library was intravenously administered in mouse models followed by isolation of vector DNA from target cells after only 24 hours, ViGeneron’s two novel vgAAV vectors termed vgAAV.GL and vgAAV.NN were identified and characterised. These novel vgAAV vectors mediate a widespread and high-level retinal transduction after intravitreal injection in a wide range of preclinical models and efficiently transduce photoreceptors in human retinal explant cultures.