GSK is paying Wave Life Sciences $12 million upfront to take ownership of a hepatic program arising from the companies’ long-running collaboration.
Under the partners’ original agreement back in 2022, GSK paid $170 million for the option to advance up to eight programs using Wave’s RNA platform. Of those, GSK had already selected four to take forward by the start of this year, with Wave still working on preparing another three for GSK to take its pick.
This morning’s announcement concerns a small interfering RNA (siRNA) candidate being targeted in the hepatology space. As with all of the programs under consideration, alongside the upfront cash, Wave is also in line for potentially up to $375 million in milestone payments for the candidate, as well as a slice of the royalties, should the therapy make it to market.
Oligonucleotides are short strands of DNA or RNA that can reduce, restore or modulate RNA through several different mechanisms. Wave’s pitch has been that it’s the only oligonucleotide platform offering three RNA-targeting modalities, in the form of editing, splicing and silencing.
GSK already has a liver-focused siRNA candidate in the clinic in the form of gatuzosiran, which is in phase 2 development for subsets of patients with steatotic liver disease.
“The advancement of this development candidate by GSK reflects the recognition of Wave’s differentiated technology, including our best-in-class SpiNA design siRNA,” Wave CEO Paul Bolno, M.D., said in a Sept. 30 release.
“Our collaboration with GSK continues to leverage the versatility of our PRISM platform coupled with human genetic insights to advance novel oligonucleotide therapeutics,” Bolno added. “With this new hepatic program now transitioning to candidate, our collaboration momentum continues as we have three additional programs rapidly advancing towards candidate selection, all leveraging our proprietary PRISM chemistry.”
Not every collaboration between the two companies has worked out. In February, GSK handed back the rights to Wave’s lead RNA editing candidate, an experimental oligonucleotide for alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency.
