USA- Ovid Therapeutics has teamed up with the startup Gensaic to deliver genetic medicines that would result in new treatments for the treatment of brain disorders.
The New York biotech will be granted the right to license any gene therapies that result from the agreement if the two parties can agree on the conditions.
Ovid also contributed US$5 million to the firm and agreed to take part in additional funding rounds.
Former Teva and Bristol-Myers Squibb executives Jeremy Levin founded Ovid seven years ago.
When Levin founded Ovid, his goal was to seize underutilized medications, license them, and develop them for uncommon brain illnesses.
The business created two treatments for Angelman’s disease and uncommon kinds of epilepsy thanks to this strategy, which also enabled the biotech to go public in 2017.
Despite its initial success, Ovid has had a difficult time in the market. In 2020, a Phase 3 trial for The Angelman’s medicine was unsuccessful, wiping down more than half of the company’s value.
It now bets on modified viruses which are frequently used in gene therapies to deliver genetic instructions to the body’s cells.
The partnership with Gensaic expands Ovid’s prospects to three more while introducing it to the world of gene therapy.
Its partner Gensaic seeks to transfer genetic material via microscopic particles generated from “phages,” the viruses that infect bacteria.
According to the Cambridge-based biotech company, these particles have the capacity to contain considerably larger genes and can be designed to target various tissue types, including the lung and brain.
Although it hasn’t been verified, Gensaic thinks they could be able to be given more than once as well.
The company has received prizes in numerous startup contests over the past two years for its work on a gene therapy delivery technology intended to get around the drawbacks of standard approaches.
The partnership with Gensaic expands Ovid’s prospects to three more while introducing it to the world of gene therapy.
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