ARC Oxford based biotech Evox therapeutics, a leader in harnessing and engineering the natural delivery capabilities of extracellular vesicles (EVs), known as exosomes, has purchased Codiak Biosciences’ engEx-AAV™ technology platform. The agreement includes all intellectual property rights, as well as securing exclusive access to certain engineering and manufacturing rights associated with it. 

This technology enables active loading of adeno-associated virus (AAV) into exosomes followed by their release when the AAV-loaded exosomes are delivered into recipient cells. This has been demonstrated to be an effective way to improve AAV delivery, and to shield AAVs from neutralising antibodies.

Focused on developing an entirely new class of therapeutics for the treatment of severe rare diseases, Evox uses its proprietary DeliverEX® technology to engineer exosomes to facilitate drug delivery to organs of interest, including the brain and the central nervous system. This approach has potential to address some of the limitations of genetic medicines such as gene therapy, gene editing and RNA therapeutics by enabling safe non-immunogenic repeated delivery to cells and tissues that are currently out of reach using other drug delivery technologies.

It is backed by leading life sciences venture capital groups including Redmile and OrbiMed, and is supported by a comprehensive intellectual property portfolio.

“We are pleased to now own this technology and look forward to applying it in future exosome AAV programs. This acquisition further adds to our dominant intellectual property portfolio of patents that cover key aspects needed to develop and commercialise exosome therapeutics including their design, composition, and manufacture,” said Per Lundin, PhD, Chief Business Officer & Co-Founder of Evox Therapeutics. “This is part of our long-term business strategy of leveraging improved exosome-mediated delivery to create and enable genetic medicines such as gene therapy and genome editors.”