IIT Kanpur licenses eye diseases gene therapy technology to Reliance Life Sciences

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur has licensed a gene therapy technology to Mumbai-based Reliance Life Sciences that could change the landscape of gene therapy, particularly for genetic eye diseases.

According to IIT Kanpur, this marks the first instance of a gene therapy-related technology being transferred from an academic institution to a company in India. The technology from IIT Kanpur aims to replace the faulty gene causing hereditary disorders with a functional gene. Reliance Life Sciences will develop the gene therapy technology as an indigenous product.

Developed by Prof Jayandharan Giridhara Rao and Shubham Maurya from the Department of Biological Sciences and Bioengineering, IIT Kanpur, the patented technology aims to treat hereditary disorders by modifying the gene of an organism. The technology optimizes the Adeno-associated virus (AAV) to deliver genes to the affected cells and improve its effectiveness. It has the potential to treat inherited eye diseases and has shown promise in correcting vision impairment in animal models of blindness.