Evox Therapeutics enters into agreement to advance next generation exosome-delivered AAV gene therapy for the treatment of heart disease

Evox Therapeutics enters into agreement to advance next generation exosome-delivered AAV gene therapy for the treatment of heart disease

The agreement aims to tackle long-standing challenges in cardiovascular disease

OXFORD, United Kingdom, Aug. 04, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Evox Therapeutics Ltd ('Evox'), a leading exosome therapeutics company, today announced a research collaboration and option agreement with the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (Icahn Mount Sinai) in New York, NY. The collaboration will work on developing exosome-encapsulated AAV (exoAAV) vectors as a novel gene delivery technology aimed at improving treatments for heart disease.

Together, Evox and Icahn Mount Sinai are focused on tackling a long-standing challenge in cardiovascular medicine, namely the safe and effective delivery of genetic medicines to cardiomyocytes. By enhancing the precision of gene delivery to heart muscle cells and cleverly evading the immune response, this novel exoAAV technology has the potential to redefine the use of gene therapy in the cardiovascular disease field.

Susmita Sahoo, PhD, Associate Professor of Medicine, Cardiology at Icahn Mount Sinai has been exploring the use of exosomes in gene therapy for a number of years and her group’s findings were published in the renowned cardiovascular disease journal Circulation on 6 July 2023. The agreement between Evox and Icahn Mount Sinai builds on this initial phase of work by combining Evox’s leading exosome technology know-how and capabilities with Icahn Mount Sinai’s deep understanding of gene delivery and expertise in cardiovascular research and clinical translation.

"This project is a significant step for Evox as it expands the reach of exosome-mediated delivery of genetic medicines to another organ outside of the liver," said Dr. Antonin de Fougerolles, Chief Executive Officer of Evox. "The work done by Dr. Sahoo and colleagues has already demonstrated that exosomes can significantly improve the in vivo delivery of AAV gene therapy to cardiomyocytes and could do so even in the presence of high levels of neutralising anti-AAV antibodies, thus offering the possibility of an exosome-mediated gene therapy that could be used to treat all patients irrespective of their immunological status. We believe that we can play an important role in advancing this important research toward clinical impact."

Dr. Sahoo added, "We are excited to work with Evox to advance this research. We hope to unlock the therapeutic potential of exosome-encapsulated AAVs, which could represent a transformative step in gene therapy and a major breakthrough in the treatment of heart diseases."

About Evox Therapeutics

Evox Therapeutics is a privately held, Oxford-based biotechnology company that is a leader in harnessing and engineering the natural delivery capabilities of extracellular vesicles (EVs), known as exosomes, to develop an entirely new class of therapeutics for the treatment of life-threatening diseases. Evox uses its proprietary DeliverEX^® technology to engineer exosomes to facilitate drug delivery to organs of interest. Exosome-based drugs have the potential to address some of the limitations of genetic medicines such as gene therapy and genome editing by enabling safe non-immunogenic repeated delivery to cells and tissues that are currently out of reach using other drug delivery technologies. Evox is backed by leading life sciences venture capital groups, including Redmile and OrbiMed, and is supported by a comprehensive intellectual property portfolio.