Bayer is teaming up with the biotech behind the delivery of Comirnaty and Onpattro. The agreement allows the German drugmaker to use Acuitas Therapeutics’ lipid nanoparticle (LNP) delivery technology to get its in vivo gene editing candidates to the liver.
Management at Bayer made a big push into gene therapy in 2020, paying $2 billion upfront for Asklepios BioPharmaceutical (AskBio). The deal gave Bayer an adeno-associated virus gene therapy platform. Since putting AskBio at the heart of its cell and gene therapy unit, Bayer has continued to ink deals, including a pact with Mammoth Biosciences to develop in vivo gene editing therapies for liver-targeted diseases.
The Acuitas agreement builds on the earlier deals and gives Bayer and AskBio access to another way to get genetic material to targets in the body. Specifically, the alliance covers high potency ionizable lipid technology and LNP carriers from a company that was battle tested in the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Developing therapies at scale is fundamental to provide breakthrough innovations to patients who have no time to wait,” Jost Reinhard, head of cell and gene therapy at Bayer's pharmaceuticals division, said in a statement. “Adding Acuitas’ clinically-validated and scalable LNP technology to our genomic medicine toolbox is another important step to advance our leadership in the field of cell and gene therapies.”
The LNP technology already enables the delivery of the small interfering RNA in Alnylam’s rare disease drug Onpattro and the mRNA in Pfizer and BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine Comirnaty. Bayer plans to use the technology for the transient delivery of gene editing RNA components to the liver.
Acuitas landed the deal on the basis of its “market-maturity combined with demonstrated manufacturing scalability.” The biotech, formerly known as AlCana Technologies, set up shop in 2009 and initially kept a fairly low profile. Acuitas entered into a collaboration with Alnylam in its early days and, in a harbinger of its future legal tussles, incurred the wrath of Tekmira Pharmaceuticals, but largely operated behind the scenes.
COVID-19 changed that. As the supplier of LNP technology used in Comirnaty, Acuitas has played a role in one of the vaccines that helped end the pandemic and become embroiled in the associated legal row over whose intellectual property underpins the product. Pfizer responded to the success of its work with Acuitas on Comirnaty by inking a 10-target nonexclusive development and option agreement.
Neither party has disclosed financial details of the Bayer-Acuitas deal.