Sanofi Invests in Gyroscope, Closes Kadmon Buy
French pharma Sanofi is investing $60 million in Gyroscope Therapeutics, a UK-based clinical-stage gene therapy company focused on eye diseases. Sanofi will initially invest $40 million, with the remaining funds contingent on a future qualifying investment round and the satisfaction of certain closing conditions.
“Gyroscope’s ambition to develop gene therapies to treat geographic atrophy, a life-altering eye disease that has no approved treatments, aligns with our mission and our focus on pushing frontiers in genomic medicine,” said Christian Mueller, vice president, global head of genomic medicine at Sanofi. “We are excited to be part of the Gyroscope story as they advance their promising investigational gene therapy, GT005, forward in clinical development.”
Geographic atrophy is an advanced form of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), that causes vision loss for more than 5 million people worldwide. GT005 has been granted Fast Track designation by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and is currently being evaluated in Phase II clinical trials.
Under the terms of the agreement, a Sanofi R&D executive will join the Gyroscope clinical advisory board to advise on matters related to the development of GT005 for geographic atrophy.
Gyroscope has also granted Sanofi an exclusive right of first refusal on certain potential future transactions for GT005 in select geographies.
Acquisition of Kadmon completed
In separate news, Sanofi announced on Nov. 9 that it had completed its purchase of US biopharma Kadmon Holdings. The deal further strengths and expands Sanofi’s general medicines portfolio, adding Rezurock to its transplant offering, the French drugmaker said. Kadmon will operate as an indirect, wholly owned subsidiary of Sanofi.
Approved by the FDA, Rezurock is a first-in-class treatment for chronic graft-versus-host disease for adults and children 12 years and older who have failed at least two prior lines of systemic therapy.
Author: Elaine Burridge, Freelance Journalist
