Biogen Inks $120 Million Pact with High Flying Ginkgo Bioworks to Redefine Manufacturing of Gene Therapy Vectors

Ginkgo Bioworks has been enjoying a momentous month in its 13-year-old history. Fresh from its colossal SPAC deal worth $17.5 billion, the Boston-based Organism Company seems to be wasting no time in riding the growth wave. Less than a week of going public, Ginkgo announced acquiring Dutch DNA Biotech, a CMO headquartered in the Netherlands, for an undisclosed amount. Days later, now the company is hogging the headlines again for a new collaboration.

On May 21st, Ginkgo Bioworks announced signing a gene therapy collaboration with biotech giant Biogen Inc. The deal valued at $120 million aims to redefine the industry standard for manufacturing recombinant adeno-associated virus (AAV)-based vectors, the companies said in a press release.

“We are excited to collaborate with Biogen as they aim to develop treatments that may potentially slow, halt or cure neurological and neurodegenerative diseases and seek to enhance the industry standard for AAV manufacturing,” said Jason Kelly, CEO of Ginkgo Bioworks. “Synthetic biology is leveraging the power of living cells to develop the next generation of therapeutics, everything from CAR-T, to CRISPR and gene therapies, which we believe will have a material impact on the lives of many.”

As per the agreement, Ginkgo will receive an upfront payment of $5 million and an additional $115 million in milestone payments. In return, Biogen will get access to Ginkgo’s proprietary cell programming platform and capabilities. Ginkgo will utilize its bioengineering facilities and resources to enhance the AAV production titers of Biogen’s gene therapy manufacturing processes.

Ginkgo’s Meteoric Rise

Ginkgo is not new to high-profile collaborations or acquisitions. With the recent buyout of Dutch DNA Biotech, it has made a total of four acquisitions so far. Launched in 2008 with a team of five graduate students from MIT along with their advisor, the synthetic biology pioneer has grown from strength to strength.

The endeavor of improving the efficiency of microbial strains has let Ginkgo impact a wide range of industries. Its state-of-the-art technologies have attracted prolific partnerships and strong investor backing over the years. In November 2020, it received a $1.1 billion investment from the US government’s International Development Finance Corp (DFC) for COVID-19 testing and the production of raw materials to fight pandemics in the future.

Biogen’s Gene Therapy Goals

Biogen has been making several moves to support its growing gene therapy pipeline, but not all have yielded the desired results. The Cambridge, MA-based company recently announced the Phase 2/3 trial failure of cotoretigene toliparvovec, an inherited eye disease gene therapy that it acquired from Nightstar Therapeutics in 2019. A few days before that, Biogen struck a $1.45 billion gene therapy deal with Washington-based Capsigen to create new capsids. With its latest deal with Ginkgo, Biogen wants to redefine its gene therapy vector manufacturing to nourish its pipeline.

“We believe that Ginkgo’s unique combination of cell programming expertise, proprietary tools, and knowledge of biological systems make them an ideal collaboration partner to explore a large number of design ideas with the goal of optimizing constructs,” said Alphonse Galdes, Ph.D., Head of Pharmaceutical Operations and Technology at Biogen. “They share our goal of ensuring approved therapies are not delayed by manufacturing constraints and are available to patients worldwide.”

Related Article: Sarepta to Begin Phase 3 Rivalry with Pfizer after its DMD Gene Therapy Registers Encouraging Data

Author

Rajaneesh K. Gopinath