Shire partners with Sangamo for hemophilia and other diseases

Ireland-headquartered specialty pharma company Shire plc (LSE: SHP) has entered into a collaboration and licensing agreement with the USA’s Sangamo BioSciences (Nasdaq: SGMO), a leader in genome-editing technology, to develop therapeutics for hemophilia and other monogenic diseases based on Sangamo’s zinc finger DNA-binding protein (ZFP) technology.

Under the terms of the deal, Shire will pay Sangamo $13 million upfront followed by research, regulatory, development and commercial milestone payments, and royalties on product sales. Further financial details were not disclosed. As a result of the news, Sangamo’s shares leapt 26% to $4.34.

Shire will receive exclusive world-wide rights to ZFP Therapeutics designed to target four genes (for blood clotting Factors VII, VIII, IX and X) which will be used to investigate curative therapies for hemophilia A and B. Shire also gains the right to designate three additional gene targets. Sangamo is responsible for all activities through submission of Investigational New Drug applications and European clinical trial applications for each product and Shire will reimburse Sangamo for its internal and external research program-related costs. Shire is responsible for clinical development and commercialization of products arising from the alliance