Abeona to receive grants from Sanfilippo foundations for development of gene therapies

A clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, Abeona Therapeutics, has announced a collaborative agreement between nine Sanfilippo foundations to provide grants for the advancement of its gene therapy programme.

The grants, totalling approximately $13.85 million, will be given to Abeona in instalments to be used in the continuation of advancing its gene therapy programme for the treatment of Sanfilippo Syndrome Type A (MPS IIIA) and Sanfilippo Syndrome Type B (MPS IIIB).

“Abeona is pleased to continue our global collaboration with the Sanfilippo foundations to help further advance our gene therapy programmes for MPS III disease,” said Timothy J. Miller, PhD, president and chief executive officer of Abeona Therapeutics. “The effort and expertise that we continue to commit to the ABO-102 and ABO-101 programmes puts us in a strong position to further extend the important progress reported to date. We are grateful to the foundations for their ongoing commitment to identifying and facilitating the development of clinical innovation to treat patients with MPS III disease.”

“Stop Sanfilippo considers that, based on the very good clinical data recently published by Abeona on the Phase I/II trial, this is a great opportunity to support a further step on this programme making it possible to treat more patients and allowing a broader clinical indication for this potential gene therapy potential treatment,” added Emilio Lopez Alvarez, president of Stop Sanfilippo in Spain.

“The importance of reducing the heparan sulphate as a cause of disease burden cannot be understated, and the clinical data demonstrated by Abeona enabled us to provide additional support in the pursuit of finding new paradigms to treat all children with Sanfilippo syndrome,” stated Carl Kapes, board member of Team Sanfilippo.

The nine foundations that collaborated on the grant for Abeona are: Team Sanfilippo Foundation, Stop Sanfilippo Fundación, Fundación Sanfilippo B, Sanfilippo Children’s Foundation, the National MPS Society, the Red Sanfilippo Foundation, the Children’s Medical Research Foundation, Abby Grace Foundation and Fondation Sanfilippo Suisse.