The first aim is to address an inborn immunodeficiency of phagocytes, which can lead to life‐threatening bacterial and fungal infections as well as to hyperinflammation. Life expectancy in affected children and young adults is compromised and the disease burden is high. To date, the only curative option is transplantation of blood-building stem cells from donors. In the absence of a compatible donor, the patient’s own stem cells can be gene corrected. Somagenetix is developing a treatment that comprises isolation of patient stem cells from bone marrow, addition of a therapeutic gene by lentiviral vectors to compensate for the inborn genetic defect and transplantation of gene-corrected cells back into the patient.
At later phases, the aim would be to apply this platform technology to cure other monogenetic defects in various diseases of the immune system, as well as in other fields of medicine.
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FUNDING PARTNERS
Uniscientia Stiftung, CRPP
ImmuGene (MeF of UZH)