Intellia Therapeutics Forms New Division eXtellia for Joint Programs with Novartis

By Bio-IT World Staff

January 14, 2016 | Intellia Therapeutics, one of three major companies developing drugs based on CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology, has announced that its ex vivo programs will now be pursued in a new division of the company called eXtellia Therapeutics. While Intellia’s core in vivo programs seek to deliver CRISPR-Cas9 complexes into patients’ native cells to make DNA changes, ex vivo programs will reengineer patients’ cells in the lab before administering them as therapies.

Intellia entered into a partnership with Novartis last January with an ex vivo focus. Novartis has a promising series of cancer immunotherapies in clinical trials, in which patients’ T-cells are extracted, reprogrammed to attack cancer cells, and then used as a drug. While Novartis’ current drug candidates in this field do not use CRISPR-Cas9 to modify the T-cells, the powerful gene editing technique would make it far easier to produce these “CAR-T” therapies quickly and at scale.

The new eXtellia division will assume responsibility for this program, and for another drug development effort with Novartis focused on genetic blood disorders. The main body of Intellia, meanwhile, will continue to pursue in vivo programs―widely considered a greater challenge, because CRISPR-Cas9 complexes must survive the body’s metabolism and immune defenses to reach specific cellular targets intact. Intellia is currently exploring a delivery vehicle for CRISPR-Cas9 based on lipid nanoparticles.