Benzinga | Oct 26, 2021 08:01AM EDT

Selecta Biosciences Reports Partnership With Ginkgo Bioworks To Advance Treatments For Orphan, Rare Diseases

Leveraging Ginkgo's cell programming platform and Selecta's ImmTOR platform to create potentially transformative enzymatic therapies

Selecta gains rights to develop and commercialize select therapeutic enzymes from Ginkgo's advanced organism engineering platform to treat select auto-immune diseases

BOSTON and WATERTOWN, Mass., Oct. 26, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Selecta Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:SELB), a biotechnology company leveraging its clinically validated ImmTOR(tm) platform to develop tolerogenic therapies that selectively mitigate unwanted immune responses, and Ginkgo Bioworks (NYSE:DNA), the leading horizontal platform for cell programming, today announced a collaboration to design novel and improved enzymes with transformative therapeutic potential to advance treatments for orphan and rare diseases. This partnership leverages the unique platforms of both companies.



"We are excited to partner with Ginkgo and expect that our ImmTOR technology, in combination with Ginkgo's high throughput enzyme discovery, design, and screening capabilities will bring us one step closer to improving the sustained efficacy of novel biologic therapeutics," said Carsten Brunn, PhD, CEO at Selecta Biosciences. "Further, this collaboration builds on extensive preclinical as well as strong clinical data from Selecta's Phase 2 COMPARE trial for the treatment of chronic refractory gout that further supports ImmTOR's potential for sustained therapeutic benefit when combined with immunogenic enzymatic therapies. We look forward to expanding our pipeline and ultimately delivering on our shared mission to improve the lives of patients in need."

Jason Kelly, CEO at Ginkgo Bioworks commented, "Ginkgo works with a growing list of industry leaders that are addressing outstanding medical challenges with diverse therapeutic modalities, and we are thrilled to partner with Selecta in an effort to discover, engineer, and develop next generation therapeutic enzymes. We are excited to support Selecta in its mission to improve the quality of life for patients with unmet medical needs by expediting and maximizing Selecta's capabilities."

Under the terms of the collaboration, Ginkgo is eligible to earn upfront research and development fees and milestones, including certain milestone payments in the form of Selecta common stock, clinical and commercial milestone payments of up to $85M in cash, as well as further downstream value in the form of royalties on sales.