South Korea-based GenKOre has inked a research collab worth up to $350 million to develop new in vivo gene editing therapies, a GenKOre spokesperson told Fierce Biotech.
According to the deal, for which the name of the U.S. biopharma involved has not been disclosed, GenKOre will use its proprietary CRISPR-Cas platform, dubbed TaRGET (tiny nuclease, augment RNA-based genome editing technology) in hopes of creating new therapies across two in vivo disease targets. Compared to genome editing tech CRISPR-Cas9, TaRGET's whole editing module can be delivered with a single AAV vector.
Under the terms of the deal, GenKOre could receive up to a combined total of $350 million in upfront, option exercise and milestone payments. The biotech will also be eligible to receive research funding and tiered royalties.
"Not only will this collaboration provide an opportunity to validate the applicability of TaRGET platform to in vivo therapy, but we will also expand the utility of our technologies to a wider spectrum of rare diseases,” said GenKOre CEO Yong-Sam Kim in the Jan. 25 release.
However, according to a separate news release posted Jan. 25—a week after the inital post—the biotech is only eligible to make up to $300 million.
Editor's note: Fierce Biotech previously reported that two separate deals occurred. This article was updated Jan. 30 to reflect information from a GenKOre spokesperson who said despite two differing news releases published a week apart with different monetary totals, there was only one deal made.