Avista Thera inks partnership with Roche on ocular diseases

USA-based Avista Therapeutics, which recently launched as a spin-out of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), aims to develop innovative gene therapies for rare ophthalmic conditions. The new company today announced a partnership with Swiss pharma giant Roche (ROG: SIX) to develop novel AAV gene therapy vectors for the eyes.

The partnership aims to apply Avista’s single-cell adeno-associated virus (AAV) engineering (scAAVengr) platform technology to develop intravitreal AAV capsids matching a capsid profile defined by Roche. Under the terms of the partnership, Roche has the right to evaluate and license novel capsids from Avista, and will be responsible for conducting preclinical, clinical and commercialization activities for gene therapy programs using these novel capsids, which will be distinct from Avista’s internal pipeline.

Roche currently markets the ophthalmic therapy Lucentis (ranibizumab), which is now facing competition from biosimilars, though it still managed to generate second-quarter 2022 sales of 572 million francs ($584 million), down 17 year-on-year. It has also developed Vabysmo (faricimab-svoa) for the treatment of wet, or neovascular, age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and diabetic macular edema (DME), which recently gained marketing approval in the USA.