Oxford BioMedica Looks to Cut Costs of Gene Therapies With Microsoft Collaboration -- Update

--Oxford BioMedica will work with Microsoft to research gene therapy technology.

--The collaboration aims at reducing the price of a crucial component some gene therapies.

--Right now, high prices of these therapies are slowing down their uptake.

By Carlo Martuscelli

Oxford BioMedica PLC (OXB.LN) said Tuesday that it will team-up with Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) in a bid to use cloud and machine-learning technology to bring down the price of gene therapies.

The U.K.-listed company, a spinoff from Oxford university, specializes in the production of lentiviral vectors, a key component of certain gene therapies.

It hopes that by working with the U.S. technology giant it can improve its production process and lower the costs of treatments that use these specially modified viruses. The lentiviral vectors deliver select pieces of DNA to cells in order to alter their genetic code--for example, helping white blood cells target tumors. This is how Kymriah, a treatment developed by Novartis AG (NOVN.EB) which uses Oxford BioMedica's components, works.

The U.K.'s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recently approved Kymriah for use by the country's public health-care system. But while these cutting-edge treatments, known as CAR-T therapies, can often have impressive outcomes from a therapeutic perspective, price has been a sticking point. The end result is that sales have been slower than hoped.

Kymriah has a U.S. list price of between $373,000 and $475,000 per patient, depending on the type of cancer.

Jason Slingsby, chief business officer at Oxford BioMedica, said that the research collaboration aims at lowering the price of these life-saving therapies by industrializing the manufacture of lentiviral vectors. The hope is to scale up production from a hundred doses of therapy per batch, to thousands, he said.

This will be accomplished by running massive parallel experiments in order to isolate the most promising cell lines that serve as a kind of "factory" for the lentiviruses. Another U.K. company, Synthace, will use its specially built software to automate the process and minimize time-consuming human intervention. Then machine-learning technology will help comb through the massive data sets produced to isolate promising results.

The research collaboration has an initial two-year term which can be extended said Mr. Slingsby. The company declined to reveal the financial terms of the deal.

Write to Carlo Martuscelli at carlo.martuscelli@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 12, 2019 12:12 ET (16:12 GMT)

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