Applied Genetic Technologies, an Alachua, Fla., gene-therapy developer, received a $2 million milestone payment from Genzyme.
The two companies are jointly developing a gene therapy for treating a form of blindness called age-related macular degeneration. The treatment uses an adeno-associated virus designed to deliver a gene to eye cells that, when activated, will disrupt a protein called VEGF that stimulates the growth of leaky blood vessels that contribute directly to blindness.
The milestone payment covered the successful transfer of AGT’s adeno-associated virus production technology to Genzyme. The gene-therapy treatment doesn’t appear to be ready for clinical trials yet.
2 Comments
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Ricardo said:
Great work being done and Genzyme was smart to pick it up.
PS: How I deplore websites that resize my browser window. Yes, agtc… I’m talking to you!
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David Hamilton said:
It is interesting, although of course the up-and-down history of gene therapy suggests that this sort of technology has to be viewed with a lot of caution.
I totally agree about the AGTC Web site — it’s obnoxious.
Genzyme appears to be increasingly interested in gene therapy. I missed an item from Friday in which they invested a fairly large sum in Ceregene, the Cell Genesys gene-therapy spinoff. I’ll post a link here when I get the item up in a bit.
UPDATE: The Ceregene-Genzyme item is up here.
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