CombiGenes drug candidate CG01 is being developed for the treatment of drug-resistant focal epilepsy, the most common form of epilepsy in adult epileptics.
In 2021, CombiGene signed a collaboration and licensing agreement worth up to USD 328,5 million with US-based Spark Therapeutics for the continued development of the project.
CombiGene's CEO on the terminated collaboration
Over the weekend, Spark unexpectedly announced that, although the project is still considered promising, it had been forced to make a decision to downgrade the candidate as part of its current pipeline.
To find out how CombiGene views the terminated collaboration, BioStock contacted CombiGene's CEO. Peter Ekolind.
Peter, why is Spark canceling the collaboration?
– The reason Spark Therapeutics is terminating the collaboration agreement is that they have down-prioritized the CG01 project as part of their current pipeline for strategic reasons.
Are there any preclinical setbacks behind the decision?
– I can't see that, the preclinical program is ongoing as planned and Spark recently announced that they were planning to shortly take over the production of viral vectors (viral particles that deliver genetic material into the cell) from our contract manufacturer, which we interpreted as a very clear positive signal.
Could you have done something yourself to avoid the situation that has now arisen?
– It is clearly a question that I have asked myself several times over the weekend. We have left control and thus influence over the preclinical development work to Spark, but it is also the very basis for the out-licensing that we did in 2021. We have constantly had weekly meetings with the project team and regular steering group meetings, most recently in Stockholm in June when almost the entire Spark team came to Stockholm. At that time, we saw no signs that an end was imminent. So I actually can't see that we have had the opportunity to avoid this, it came as a total surprise to us.
CombiGene's shareholders probably share your disappointment with the announcement from Spark. What can you say to them today?
– We now have three months until the collaboration ends in its entirety on January 12. The time until then will focus on analyzing the data we receive from Spark and making decisions about how we will handle CG01 going forward. When we have a plan going forward, we will communicate it to shareholders.
– At the same time, it is important to remember that CombiGene is today a company with more than one project. We not only have CG01, we are also continuing the work of collecting data for our second project, CGT2. In our new pain program COZY, we have two projects, a peptide and a gene therapy project with a high level of activity and a very large market potential. In addition, we are actively looking for new gene therapy projects to license into the company.
– In the midst of our great disappointment, however, we must realize that events like this are part of everyday life for all pharmaceutical companies. Drug development is associated with extensive risks of both a development technical and business strategic nature, which is one of the reasons why CombiGene is working hard to broaden CombiGene's project portfolio. In simple terms, the more projects there are in the project portfolio, the greater the chances of success.
– We will of course intensively analyze how we optimally prioritize the use of our resources as a consequence of ending the collaboration with Spark.