Abeona Therapeutics Inc., a leading clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing novel gene and cell therapies for life-threatening rare diseases, announced today a collaborative agreement between nine Sanfilippo foundations to provide approximately $13.85 million of grants to Abeona in installments for the advancement of the Company’s clinical stage gene therapies for Sanfilippo Syndrome Type A (MPS IIIA) and Sanfilippo Syndrome Type B (MPS IIIB).
“The National MPS Society has a mandate to find and fund promising research and clinical trials, and we are pleased to provide continued support for Abeona’s clinical development of MPS III gene therapies,” said Stephanie Bozarth, National MPS Society chairman of the board.
“Abeona is pleased to continue our global collaboration with the Sanfilippo foundations to help further advance our gene therapy programs for MPS III disease,” said Timothy J. Miller, Ph.D., president and chief executive officer of Abeona Therapeutics. “The effort and expertise that we continue to commit to the ABO-102 and ABO-101 programs puts us in a strong position to further extend the important progress reported to date. We are grateful to the foundations for their ongoing commitment to identifying and facilitating the development of clinical innovation to treat patients with MPS III disease.”
Team Sanfilippo Foundation, Stop Sanfilippo Fundación, Fundación Sanfilippo B, Sanfilippo Children’s Foundation, the National MPS Society, the Red Sanfilippo Foundation, the Children’s Medical Research Foundation, Abby Grace Foundation, and Fondation Sanfilippo Suisse collectively collaborated on the grant to Abeona.
“The importance of reducing the heparan sulfate as a cause of disease burden cannot be understated, and the clinical data demonstrated by Abeona enabled us to provide additional support in the pursuit of finding new paradigms to treat all children with Sanfilippo syndrome,” stated Carl Kapes, Board Member of Team Sanfilippo.
Additionally, Abeona received $5.0 million through the cash exercise of 625,000 common stock purchase warrants. Each warrant was exercised to purchase one share of common stock for $8.00 per share. The warrants were issued as part of a $10.0 million financing completed in May 2015 and would have otherwise been exercisable until November 2017.
