Big deal: Allergan spots RetroSense for $60m

Pharmaceutical firm Allergan last Tuesday acquired RetroSense Therapeutics, a biotech spinout of Wayne State University, for $60m and potential further payments if regulatory and commercial milestones are reached.

While the main driver behind the acquisition appears to have been RetroSense’s lead candidate, RST-001, the spinout actually signed a licensing agreement with University of California, San Diego, just a few days earlier for red activatable channelrhodopsin (Reachr).

RetroSense, established in 2009, is developing gene therapies that restore vision in blind patients. The technology is known as optogenetics and creates light sensitivity in cells that have none.

Reachr is one such optogene, developed by Roger Tsien, a professor of biochemistry who died on August 24. Tsien had won the Nobel prize for chemistry in 2008 for fluorescent proteins that illuminate molecules within cells.

Sean Ainsworth, chief executive of RetroSense, said of the licensing deal: “The Reachr licence allows us to continue building on our world-leading platform in optogenetics for vision restoration.

“Because the Reachr opsin is red-shifted, it complements our existing development programs quite nicely, expanding our spectrum.”

RST-001, meanwhile, targets the conditions retinitis pigmentosa and advanced dry age-related macular degeneration.

The first is an inherited, generative eye disease that can affect patients of any age and leads to tunnel vision and eventual blindness. The other affects patients over 60 and leads to a dimming or distortion of vision and may progress to blind spots and loss of vision.

Optogenetics is based on research conducted by Zhuo-Hua Pan and his colleagues at Wayne State’s Kresge Eye Institute and Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, who were supported by Richard Masland and his team at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary as well as researchers at Salus University.

The acquisition, which follows a total of $12.75m in funding, provides an exit to pharmaceutical firm Santen Pharmaceutical, diagnostics company Nerveda, BlueWater Angels, RBV Capital, ExSight Capital, SDL Ventures, Tech Coast Angels, and public-private partnership Michigan Economic Development Corporation.

The acquisition also offers a boost to the concept of gene therapy, a type of treatment that has had something of a public image problem in the past couple of weeks with pharmaceutical firm Novartis halting its research into that area and shutting down its Cell and Gene Therapy unit earlier this month.

The company insisted it was not giving up on gene therapy entirely, but was seeking to reassign researchers to other areas, primarily immunotherapy. Novartis did, nevertheless, let 120 staff go.

Allergan, meanwhile, will add RetroSense to its portfolio of two other recent acquisitions – glaucoma treatment device producer AqueSys, bought for $300m plus milestones in September 2015, and dry eye device manufacturer Oculeve, purchased for $125m plus milestones in July 2015.

The three additions signal a push by Allergan to diversify its product offering around ophthalmology, which makes up the biggest chunk of the corporate’s revenue but which currently revolves primarily around eye drops for conditions such as dry eyes.

Brent Saunders, chief executive and president of Allergan, said: “The acquisition of RetroSense and its RST-001 program builds on Allergan’s deep commitment to eye care, and our focus on investing in game-changing innovation for retinal conditions, including retinitis pigmentosa, where patients desperately need treatment options.”