MolMed and GSK sign gene therapy deal
This article was originally published in Scrip
Executive Summary
Italy's MolMed has signed a strategic agreement with GlaxoSmithKline to provide gene therapy services to the UK company. The deal is worth €34m over five years in up-front, milestone, service and supply payments. It follows earlier agreements under which MolMed undertook to design the production process and subsequently continue to manufacture GSK's investigational gene therapy for the ultra-rare, life-threatening condition Adenosine Deaminase Deficiency - Severe Combined Immune Deficiency (ADA-SCID). In 2010 GSK formed an alliance with Fondazione Telethon and Fondazione San Raffaele (MolMed was spun out of the San Raffaele Scientific Institute) to address rare diseases using gene therapy carried out on stem cells taken from the patient's bone marrow. The deal focused on ADA-SCID and six further applications of ex vivo stem cell therapy. The current deal specifies that MolMed will supply development, manufacturing and tech transfer services for the clinical application of gene therapies based on viral vector cellular transduction. MolMed chairman and CEO Claudio Bordignon said the agreement "acknowledges the substantial investment the company has made in its development labs and in additional production facilities, ultimately placing MolMed in a leadership position in the global industry."