Vertex and Verve Therapeutics have agreed to a four-year research collaboration to discover and develop in vivo gene editing program for liver disease.
The partnership, announced earlier this week, outlines that Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Verve will work on the research and preclinical development of the program, and Vertex will cover the costs of all the programs. Then, Vertex will take over the development, manufacturing and commercialization of any resulting drug product.
The terms of the agreement also state that Verve will receive an upfront payment of $60 million, which will include a $35 million equity investment. Following the commercialization of the product, Verve will also be entitled to receive up to $66 million in success payments, and up to $340 million in commercial milestones and royalties.
“This partnership with Vertex enables an important step forward for Verve as we build out our leading gene editing capabilities and pipeline of in vivo gene editing medicines to address serious diseases,” said Sekar Kathiresan, co-founder and CEO of Verve. “This agreement validates the pioneering work at Verve to develop liver-directed gene editing medicines and expands the reach of our capabilities and breadth of our pipeline. We are thrilled to partner with Vertex to advance this important research and development program.”