Spar­ingVi­sion rais­es $52M to kick off long jour­ney for a next-gen gene ther­a­py that goes much, much broad­er than Lux­tur­na

Un­til Spark Ther­a­peu­tics’ pi­o­neer­ing gene ther­a­py, Lux­tur­na, came along, pa­tients with re­tini­tis pig­men­tosa had few treat­ment op­tions. Even af­ter it was ap­proved, though, the ma­jor­i­ty were left with the ex­act same op­tions.

Be­cause it’s tar­get­ing mu­ta­tions in a spe­cif­ic gene known as RPE65, Lux­tur­na can on­ly ad­dress 2 to 3% of the en­tire RP pop­u­la­tion, Stephane Bois­sel told End­points News.

Bois­sel is the new­ly-mint­ed CEO of Spar­ingVi­sion, a French biotech co-found­ed by José-Alain Sa­hel and Thier­ry Léveil­lard at the In­sti­tut de la Vi­sion. They have their sight set on a new kind of AAV con­struct — a next-gen­er­a­tion gene ther­a­py if you will — that can treat all pa­tients of RP in­de­pen­dent of ge­net­ic mu­ta­tions.

Endpoints News

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