Exhibit 99.1
Taysha Gene Therapies Announces Collaborations to Advance Next-Generation Mini-Gene Payloads for AAV Gene Therapies for the Treatment of Genetic Epilepsies and Additional CNS Disorders
Collaboration with Cleveland Clinic to support creation of novel next-generation mini-gene platform to pursue monogenic diseases not addressable by conventional AAV gene therapy technologies
Collaboration with UT Southwestern Gene Therapy Program to develop new constructs incorporating novel mini-gene payloads, aligned with previously established partnership with Taysha
Taysha to have an exclusive option on new payloads, constructs and intellectual property arising from research conducted under the agreements
Dallas – February 9, 2021 - Taysha Gene Therapies, Inc. (Nasdaq: TSHA), a patient-centric, clinical-stage gene therapy company focused on developing and commercializing AAV-based gene therapies for the treatment of monogenic diseases of the central nervous system (CNS) in both rare and large patient populations, today announced multi-year collaborations with Cleveland Clinic and UT Southwestern Gene Therapy Program (UTSW) to advance next-generation mini-gene payloads for AAV gene therapies for the treatment of genetic epilepsies and additional CNS disorders. Taysha will have an exclusive option on new payloads, constructs and intellectual property associated with, and arising from, the research conducted under this agreement.
A team of researchers from Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute will create mini-gene payloads designed to address some of the long-standing challenges in gene therapy. UTSW will create and evaluate vector constructs in in vivo and in vitro efficacy models of genetic epilepsies and additional CNS disorders.
“By pushing the boundaries of AAV capsid engineering, we may be able to overcome some of the challenges inherent with gene therapy and potentially expand the range of treatable genetic CNS diseases with gene therapies. We appreciate the support from Taysha and UTSW in this work,” said Dennis Lal, Ph.D., Assistant Staff at Cleveland Clinic Genomic Medicine Institute and Neurological Institute. “We believe that our proprietary approach to overcoming current limitations of packaging capacity and our access to data on thousands of protein structures associated with a whole host of monogenic CNS disorders has the potential to enable a deep pipeline of functioning mini-genes.”
“Cleveland Clinic and UTSW are two of the world’s preeminent leaders in gene therapy innovation, and this collaboration is designed to leverage our capabilities and synergies with these institutions to pioneer novel approaches to address vector capacity, which is a common limitation when treating genetic disorders associated with large proteins,” said Suyash Prasad, MBBS, M.SC., MRCP, MRCPCH, FFPM, Chief Medical Officer and Head of Research and Development of Taysha. “We look forward to a productive collaboration with the goal of developing treatments with promising benefits to patients with debilitating genetic epilepsies.”