Glax­o­SmithK­line backs a pre­clin­i­cal ac­ne treat­ment from Eli­go Bio­science that us­es CRISPR to kill bac­te­ria

Rough­ly three and a half years since bag­ging a $20 mil­lion fi­nanc­ing round to de­vel­op its CRISPR-based mi­cro­bio­me mod­u­la­tion plat­form, Eli­go Bio­science has made its first deal with a ma­jor phar­ma play­er. And it’s one who’s typ­i­cal­ly on the look­out for new pre­ci­sion med­i­cines.

The French biotech locked down a part­ner­ship with Glax­o­SmithK­line for up to $224 mil­lion, the com­pa­nies an­nounced Mon­day, aim­ing to adapt Eli­go’s tech­nol­o­gy in­to a treat­ment for the bac­te­ria that caus­es ac­ne. Un­der the agree­ment, Eli­go will re­ceive an up­front pay­ment and R&D fund­ing to take the pro­gram through the proof of con­cept phase, af­ter which GSK can ex­er­cise an op­tion to li­cense the can­di­date.

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