Novartis has bought Vedere Bio, a retinal disease therapy spinout of UC Berkeley also exploiting UPenn research, to expand its gene medicine capabilities.
Vedere Bio, a Switzerland-based genetic retinal disease therapy spinout of University of California, Berkeley, was acquired by pharmaceutical firm Novartis for up to $280m today.
The amount includes a $150m upfront payment in addition to as much as $130m in milestone payments.
Founded in 2019, Vedere Bio is developing gene therapies for inherited retinal dystrophies, a group of genetic disorders that gradually cause blindness from birth through to late-middle age.
Vedere hopes to prevent and reverse vision loss by intravitreally injecting light-sensing proteins into the retina. Its platform is able to target specific cells to reach remaining photoreceptors not yet destroyed by disease.
Novartis expects the technology to complement its gene therapy R&D strategy. Some of Vedere Bio’s assets have been spun out into a new entity called Vedere Bio II.
The gene therapy platform builds on research spearheaded by Ehud Iscacoff and John Flannery, two professors of neurobiology based, respectively, at UC Berkeley’s Department of Molecular and Cell Biology and School of Optometry.
The spinout also exploits research conducted at University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine.
Vedere Bio’s exiting investors include inherited retinal disease research charity Foundation Fighting Blindness as well as Atlas Ventures and Mission BioCapital, however the spinout did not say how much funding it had raised.
Cynthia Grosskreutz, global head ophthalmology at Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, said: “We believe that gene therapy technologies have transformative potential for treating blinding diseases.
“With the new tools that this acquisition brings to the table, we will no longer be limited to replacing single genetic mutations that are causing eye diseases. This introduces the potential to treat any patient with retinal degeneration leading to photoreceptor death.”