rare disease

Join the movement to fight rare diseases

/ Katie Sharify / 2 Comments

Tomorrow, February 28th, is Rare Disease Day. It’s a day to remind ourselves of the millions of people, and their families, struggling with these diseases. These conditions are also called orphan diseases because, in many cases, drug companies were not interested in adopting them to develop treatments.

Here at the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), we understand the importance of funding research that impacts not just the most common diseases. In fact, 50% of all the projects we fund target a rare disease or condition such as: Retinitis pigmentosa, Sickle cell disease, Huntington’s disease, and Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.

Over the years, CIRM has invested millions of dollars in helping children born with severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID), including $12 million to test a newly designed therapy in a clinical trial at UC San Francisco.

Children born with SCID have no functioning immune system so even a simple infection can prove life-threatening or fatal. We recently shared an update from one of the young patients in the trial.

Additionally, last December, the CIRM governing Board awarded $4,048,253 to Dr. Joseph Anderson and his team at UC Davis to develop a blood stem cell gene therapy for the treatment of Tay-Sachs disease.

Tay-Sachs disease is a rare genetic disorder where a deficiency in the Hex A gene results in excessive accumulation of certain fats in the brain and nerve cells and causes progressive dysfunction.  

There are several forms of Tay-Sachs disease, including an infant, juvenile, and adult forms. Over a hundred mutations in the disease-causing Hex A gene have been identified that result in enzyme disfunction. There are currently no effective therapies or cures for Tay-Sachs. 

The irony of rare diseases is that a lot of people have them. The total number of Americans living with a rare disease is estimated at between 25-30 million. Two-thirds of these patients are children.

Right now, individual disease programs tend to try individual approaches to developing a treatment, which is time consuming and expensive. That’s why this past summer, CIRM signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) to join the Bespoke Gene Therapy Consortium (BGTC).

BGTC is a public-private partnership, managed by FNIH, that brings together the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and multiple public and private sector organizations to streamline the development and delivery of gene therapies for rare diseases.

“At CIRM we have funded several projects using gene therapy to help treat, and even cure, people with rare diseases such as severe combined immunodeficiency,” says Dr. Maria T. Millan, the President and CEO of CIRM. “But even an agency with our resources can only do so much. This agreement with the Bespoke Gene Therapy Consortium will enable us to be part of a bigger partnership, one that can advance the field, overcome obstacles and lead to breakthroughs for many rare diseases.”

CIRM is proud to fund and spread awareness of rare diseases and invites you to watch this video about how they affect families around the world.

Sweet 16 and counting for stem cell clinical trial

/ Kevin McCormack / 1 Comment

Dr. Judy Shizuru: Photo courtesy Jasper Therapeutics

Over the years the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) has invested a lot in helping children born with severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID), a fatal immune disorder. And we have seen great results with some researchers reporting a 95 percent success rate in curing these children.

Now there’s more encouraging news from a CIRM-funded clinical trial with Jasper Therapeutics. They have announced that they have tested their approach in 16 patients, with encouraging results and no serious adverse events.

Let’s back up a little. Children born with SCID have no functioning immune system, so even a simple infection can prove life threatening. Left untreated, children with SCID often die in the first few years of life. Several of the approaches CIRM has funded use the child’s own blood stem cells to help fix the problem. But at Jasper Therapeutics they are using another approach. They use a bone marrow or hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HCT).   This replaces the child’s own blood supply with one that is free of the SCID mutation, which helps restore their immune system.

However, there’s a problem. Most bone marrow transplants use chemotherapy or radiation to destroy the patient’s own unhealthy blood stem cells and make room for the new, healthy ones. It can be effective, but it is also toxic and complex and can only be performed by specialized teams in major medical centers, making access particularly difficult for poor and underserved communities.

To get around that problem Jasper Therapeutics is using an antibody called JSP191 – developed with CIRM funding – that directs the patient’s own immune cells to kill diseased blood stem cells, creating room to transplant new, healthy cells. To date the therapy has already been tested in 16 SCID patients.

In addition to treating 16 patients treated without any apparent problems,  Jasper has also been granted Fast Track Designation by the US Food and Drug Administration. This can help speed up the review of treatments that target serious unmet conditions. They’ve also been granted both Orphan and Rare Pediatric Disease designations. Orphan drug designation qualifies sponsors for incentives such as tax credits for clinical trials. Rare Pediatric Disease designation means that if the FDA does eventually approve JSP191, then Jasper can apply to receive a priority review of an application to use the product for a different disease, such as someone who is getting a bone marrow transplant for sickle cell disease or severe auto immune diseases.

In a news release, Ronald Martell, President and CEO of Jasper Therapeutics said:

“The FDA’s Fast Track designation granted for JSP191 in Severe Combined Immunodeficiency (SCID) reinforces the large unmet medical need for patients with this serious disease. Along with its previous designations of Orphan and Rare Pediatric Disease for JSP191, the FDA’s Fast Track recognizes JSP191’s potential role in improving clinical outcomes for SCID patients, many of whom are too fragile to tolerate the toxic chemotherapy doses typically used in a transplant.”

Celebrating academic success and overcoming obstacles

/ Esteban Cortez / 2 Comments

Congratulations to Yasmine Arafa (she/hers), a CIRM Bridges Student Intern at UC Davis Institute for Regenerative Cures! She recently graduated from California State University-Sacramento, officially concluding her Master’s degree and Fulbright Association journey. She conducted research with the aim of developing new therapeutic approaches for rare diseases.

Yasmine says, “I have finally passed my thesis defense and am now a Master‘s degree holder. People in grad school tend to not celebrate their achievements as much, but I chose to celebrate mine.”

“As a graduate student who started their degree in 2020, it has been a rough journey for me. Coming to a new country on my own, away from my family and loved ones, during a pandemic, has been quite the challenge. I‘m proud of myself and of this achievement, because I know the immense amount of academic and mental effort I had to put in to get to this point. To all graduate students out there, don‘t forget to celebrate your success!”

Congrats, Yasmine! She joins 1,663 CIRM Bridges alumni who are helping build the next generation of scientists and meet CIRM’s mission to #AccelerateWorldClassScience here in California for the world. 

To learn more about CIRM’s internship programs, visit our website.

Creating a ‘bespoke’ approach to rare diseases

/ Kevin McCormack / 2 Comments

THIS BLOG IS ALSO AVAILABLE AS AN AUDIO CAST

Up until recently the word “bespoke” meant just one thing to me, a hand-made suit, customized and fitted to you. There’s a street in London, Saville Row, that specializes in these suits. They’re gorgeous. They’re also very expensive and so I thought I’d never have a bespoke anything.

I was wrong. Because CIRM is now part of a bespoke arrangement. It has nothing to do with suits, it’s far more important than that. This bespoke group is aiming to create tailor-made gene therapies for rare diseases.

It’s called the Bespoke Gene Therapy Consortium (BGTC). Before we go any further I should warn you there’s a lot of acronyms heading your way. The BGTC is part of the Accelerating Medicines Partnership® (AMP®) program. This is a public-private partnership between the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and multiple public and private organizations, such as CIRM.

The program is managed by the Foundation for the NIH (FNIH) and it aims to develop platforms and standards that will speed the development and delivery of customized or ‘bespoke’ gene therapies that could treat the millions of people affected by rare diseases.

Why is it necessary? Well, it’s estimated that there are around 7,000 rare diseases and these affect between 25-30 million Americans. Some of these diseases affect only a few hundred, or even a few dozen people. With so few people they almost always struggle to raise the funds needed to do research to find an effective therapy. However, many of these rare diseases are linked to a mutation or defect in a single gene, which means they could potentially be treated by highly customizable, “bespoke” gene therapy approaches.

Right now, individual disease programs tend to try individual approaches to developing a treatment. That’s time consuming and expensive. The newly formed BGTC believes that if we create a standardized approach, we could develop a template that can be widely used to develop bespoke gene therapies quickly, more efficiently and less expensively for a wide array of rare diseases.

“At CIRM we have funded several projects using gene therapy to help treat, and even cure, people with rare diseases such as severe combined immunodeficiency,” says Dr. Maria T. Millan, the President and CEO of CIRM. “But even an agency with our resources can only do so much. This agreement with the Bespoke Gene Therapy Consortium will enable us to be part of a bigger partnership, one that can advance the field, overcome obstacles and lead to breakthroughs for many rare diseases.”

With gene therapy the goal is to identify the genetic defect that is causing the disease and then deliver a normal copy of the gene to the right tissues and organs in the body, replacing or correcting the mutation that caused the problem. But what is the best way to deliver that gene? 

The BGTC’s is focusing on using an adeno-associated virus (AAV) as a delivery vehicle. This approach has already proven effective in Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA), retinitis pigmentosa (RP), and spinal muscular atrophy. The consortium will test several different approaches using AAV gene therapies starting with basic research and supporting those all the way to clinical trials. The knowledge gained from this collaborative approach, including developing ways to manufacture these AAVs and creating a standard regulatory approach, will help build a template that can then be used for other rare diseases to copy.

As part of the consortium CIRM will identify specific rare disease gene therapy research programs in California that are eligible to be part of the AMP BGTC. CIRM funding can then support the IND-enabling research, manufacturing and clinical trial activities of these programs.

“This knowledge network/consortium model fits in perfectly with our mission of accelerating transformative regenerative medicine treatments to a diverse California and world,” says Dr. Millan. “It is impossible for small, often isolated, groups of patients around the world to fund research that will help them. But pooling our resources, our skills and knowledge with the consortium means the work we support here may ultimately benefit people everywhere.”

The bootcamp helping in the fight against rare diseases

/ Kevin McCormack / 3 Comments

THIS BLOG IS ALSO AVAILABLE AS AN AUDIO CAST

Dr. Emil Kakkis at the Rare Entrepreneur Bootcamp

Imagine you or someone you love is diagnosed with a rare disease and then told, “There is no cure, there are no treatments and because it’s so rare no one is even doing any research into developing a treatment.” Sadly for millions of people that’s an all-too-common occurrence.

There are around 7,000 rare diseases affecting some 25-30 million Americans. Some of these are ultra-rare conditions where worldwide there may be only a few hundred people, or even a few dozen, diagnosed with it. And of all these rare diseases, only 5% have an approved therapy.

For the people struggling with a rare disease, finding a sense of hope in the face of all this can be challenging. Some say it feels as if they have been abandoned by the health care system. Others fight back, working to raise both awareness about the disease and funds to help support research to develop a treatment. But doing that without experience in the world of fund raising and drug development can pose a whole new series of challenges.

That’s where Ultragenyx comes into the picture. The company has a simple commitment to patients. “We aim to develop safe and effective treatments for many serious rare diseases as fast as we can, and we are committed to helping the whole rare disease community move forward by sharing our science and expertise to advance future development, whether by us or others.”

They live up to that commitment by hosting a Rare Entrepreneur Bootcamp. Every year they bring together a dozen or so patient or family organizations that are actively raising funds for a potential treatment approach and give them a 3-day crash course in what they’ll need to know to have a chance to succeed in rare disease drug development.

A panel discussion at the Rare Entrepreneur Bootcamp

Dr. Emil Kakkis, the founder of Ultragenyx, calls these advocates “warriors” because of all the battles they are going to face. He told them, “Get used to hearing no, because you are going to hear that a lot. But keep fighting because that’s the only way you get to ‘yes’.”

The bootcamp brings in experts to coach and advise the advocates on everything from presentation skills when pitching a potential investor, to how to collaborate with academic researchers, how to design a clinical trial, what they need to understand about manufacturing or intellectual property rights.

In a blog about the event, Arjun Natesan, vice president of Translational Research at Ultragenyx, wrote, “We are in a position to share what we’ve learned from bringing multiple drugs to market – and making the process easier for these organizations aligns with our goal of treating as many rare disease patients as possible. Our aim is to empower these organizations with guidance and tools and help facilitate their development of life-changing rare disease treatments.”

For the advocates it’s not just a chance to gain an understanding of the obstacles ahead and how to overcome them, it’s also a chance to create a sense of community. Meeting others who are fighting the same fight helps them realize they are not alone, that they are part of a bigger, albeit often invisible, community, working tirelessly to save the lives of their children or loved ones.  

CIRM also has a commitment to supporting the search for treatments for rare diseases. We are funding more than two dozen clinical trials, in addition to many earlier stage research projects, targeting rare conditions.

Rare Disease: An Uphill Battle for Diagnosis and Treatment

/ Katie Sharify / Leave a comment

THIS BLOG IS ALSO AVAILABLE AS AN AUDIO CAST

From left to right: Baby Dalia pre-diagnosis, Dalia on her way to the kindergarten, and Dalia today.

When Dalia was 5 years old, she was finally diagnosed with MERRF syndrome– an extremely rare form of mitochondrial disease. By then, her parents had been searching for an answer for three frustrating years. And like most parents of a child suffering from an undiagnosed medical condition, they expected that Dalia’s diagnosis would start a path to recovery. 

Unfortunately for Dalia and millions of Americans who have a rare disease, the condition is chronic and life-threating. More than 90% of rare diseases have no treatment. None are curable. Even more heartbreaking for Dalia’s family, MERRF is degenerative. Time is of essence.

According to research published in The Journal of Rare Disorders, it takes seeing 7.3 physicians and trying for 4.8 years before getting an accurate rare disease diagnosis. This uphill battle aside, diagnosis is merely the first challenge. For the 7,000 known rare diseases, less than 600 have FDA-approved treatments.  

The irony of rare diseases is that a lot of people have them. The total number of Americans living with a rare disease is estimated at between 25-30 million. Two-thirds of these patients are children. “You feel alone, because by definition, your child’s diagnosis is exceptional. And yet, 1 in 10 Americans and 300 million people globally are living with a rare disease,” explains Jessica Fein, Dalia’s mother, in a heartfelt HuffPost article detailing her daughter’s diagnostic odyssey. 

For decades, the rare disease community has pointed to these staggering numbers to highlight that while individual diseases may be rare, the total number of people with a rare disease is large. 

In 1983, Congress passed the Orphan Drug Act in order to provide incentives for drug companies to develop treatments for rare diseases. Between 1973 and 1983, fewer than 10 treatments for rare diseases were approved. Since 1983, hundreds of drugs and biologic products for rare diseases have been approved by the FDA. While researchers have made progress in learning how to diagnose, treat, and even prevent a variety of rare diseases, there is still much to do because like Dalia, most patients living with a rare disorder have no treatments to even consider. 

Four years after her diagnosis, Dalia lost her ability to walk, talk, eat, and breathe without a ventilator. At the time she was only 9 years old. More than a decade after her diagnosis, Dalia is finally enrolled in a clinical trial. Her parents hope that awareness about rare diseases and their prevalence will lead to research, funding, advocacy and health equity. 

Here at the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), we understand the importance of funding research that impacts not just the most common diseases. In fact, more than one third of all the projects we fund target a rare disease or condition such as: Retinitis pigmentosa, Sickle cell disease, Huntington’s disease, and Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.

“[If] each of us learned a bit about just one rare disease… it probably wouldn’t change the trajectory for most of the people who are currently suffering, but it might help someone be diagnosed earlier. We’ve made leaps and bounds with awareness, research and treatment for AIDS, cancer and depression, all diseases that were once unknown… Awareness and action aren’t things that can be put on the back burner until more common illnesses are cured. We must do what we can today- and every day moving forward.”

A rare chance to help those in need

/ Kevin McCormack / Leave a comment

Recently the CIRM Board voted to support the creation of a Rare Disease Advisory Council (RDAC) in California. An RDAC is an advisory body providing a platform for the rare community to have a stronger voice in state government. They address the needs of rare patients and families by giving stakeholders an opportunity to make recommendations to state leaders on critical issues including the need for increased awareness, diagnostic tools and access to affordable treatments and cures.  

California is now in the process of creating an RDAC but, as a recent article in STAT highlighted, we are far from the only one.

Guadalupe Hayes-Mota

21 states give rare disease patients a seat at the table. The other 29 need to follow suit
By Guadalupe Hayes-Mota Originally published by STAT on July 26, 2021

A powerful movement is taking shape in the U.S. rare disease community that could transform the lives of millions of people. That’s right — millions. Even though a single rare disease may affect only a few individuals, there are several thousand of these problematic diseases that are difficult to identify and treat.

Since 2015, 21 U.S. states have passed legislation to create Rare Disease Advisory Councils that provide platforms for patients and family members to communicate with experts, policymakers, and the broader public. It’s critical to seize this hopeful moment because the needs of so many people living with rare diseases go unaddressed.

I know because I’m one of them.

I was born and raised in a small town in Mexico and diagnosed at birth with hemophilia, a rare genetic disease that prevents the blood from clotting after trauma or injury. While treatment existed in other parts of the world, I had only limited access to it, forcing me to live an isolated childhood indoors, protected and isolated from the world.

When my appendix burst at age 12, I underwent emergency surgery, followed by a desperate eight-hour ambulance ride to a hospital in another town in search of better medication to stop the bleeding. Doctors told my parents I was unlikely to survive, but against all odds I did — after clinically dying twice in the operating room. I am one of the few lucky people with my condition to have survived severe bleeding events without treatment.

After this traumatic incident, my family moved to a small town in California’s Mojave Desert. Navigating the health care system as an immigrant and not knowing the language was complicated. Accessing treatment and services for my disease was almost impossible at first. The nearest specialist was 90 minutes away. Thankfully, with help from the hemophilia association chapter in our area, I gained access to care and treatment.

Read the complete article here.

Using film to break down barriers around rare disease

/ Kevin McCormack / 3 Comments

You can read about a disease or hear someone talking about it and be engaged and interested. But when you see and hear the people who have the disease talking about it and the impact it has on their lives, that’s when a profound impact occurs. When you look into their eyes and hear them describe, in their own words, how it affects them, you are moved, truly moved, in ways that are hard to describe.

That’s the goal of the Rare Disease Film Festival taking place in San Francisco Saturday November 9 and Sunday November 10. Over two days they’ll be showing 50 films on rare diseases. The film “Rare But Not Alone” highlights conditions such as Batten Disease, Sanfilippo Syndrome and Epidermolysis Bullosa. It shows how families with rare conditions can often feel isolated and alone, but through the internet they can create support groups and a community to help them cope with the pain and challenges that these conditions create.

Daniel DeFabio, the co-founder of the festival, says the idea grew out of his own experiences as a parent.

“I had run a film festival before, it was general interest short independent films. But when my son was diagnosed with Menkes Disease, I made a film about that. After exploring the best festivals and conferences to screen a rare disease film I saw an unmet need.  There was nothing out there like a film festival focused on the rare disease community.  A community of 30 million Americans seemed to deserve its own festival.”

A rare disease is one that affects fewer than 200,000 people. In the US they are also called “Orphan diseases” because drug companies were not interested in adopting them to help create cures or new treatments. At CIRM we are committed to funding research into these kinds of condition. We are not in the business of making a profit. We are here to try and save lives. Of the 60 clinical trials we now fund more than a dozen of them target rare conditions.

DeFabio says the festival is designed to be a place for people to come and share their experiences, but he also hopes it has a more practical, tangible result.

“I partnered with Bo Bigelow. His daughter has USP7. We knew we wanted more than just increased awareness. We wanted awareness that could lead to action. We structured the festival to get the right people together and talking about what they learn in the films. You know Debussy’s line on how music is what happens in the space between the notes? We felt advocacy was what happens in the space between the films. We hope after a screening people stay for a while and start conversations in our lobby. Ideally, they’ll make connection to a new researcher, or a researcher might realize a new application for work that has already been done.”

“We say of our festival you may never be more moved at the movies. And we provide the packs to tissues to our audience in case we’re right.”

Rare disease gets go-ahead to run clinical trial

/ Kevin McCormack / 1 Comment

crf

A young girl with cystinosis: Photo courtesy CRF

Cystinosis is one of those diseases most people have never heard of and should be very grateful they haven’t. It’s rare – affecting only around 500 children and young adults in the US and just 2,000 people worldwide – but it’s nasty. Up to now the treatments for it have been very limited. But a new clinical trial, just given the go-ahead by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), could help change that.

Cystinosis usually strikes children before they are two years old and can lead to end stage kidney failure before their tenth birthday. It is caused by a genetic mutation that allows an amino acid, cysteine, to build up in and damage the kidneys, eyes, liver, muscles, pancreas and brain.

There is one approved therapy, cysteamine, but this only delays progression of the disease, has severe side effects and people taking it still require kidney transplants, and develop diabetes, neuromuscular disorders and hypothyroidism.

All those are reasons why, in September 2016, the CIRM Board approved $5.2 million for U.C. San Diego researcher Stephanie Cherqui, Ph.D. and her team to try a different approach. Their goal is to take blood stem cells from people with cystinosis, genetically-modify them to remove the mutation that causes the disease, then return them to the patient. The hope is that the modified blood stem cells will create a new, healthy, blood system free of the disease.

Results from pre-clinical work testing this approach in mice have been so encouraging that the FDA has given the go-ahead for that work to now be tested in people.

In a news release Nancy Stack, the Founder and President of the Cystinosis Research Foundation (CRF), the largest provider of grants for cystinosis research in the world, says this is exciting news for a community that has been waiting for a breakthrough:

“We are thrilled that CRF’s dedication to funding Dr. Cherqui’s work has resulted in FDA approval for the first-ever stem cell and gene therapy treatment for individuals living with cystinosis. This approval from the FDA brings us one step closer to what we believe will be a cure for cystinosis and will be the answer to my daughter Natalie’s wish made fifteen years ago, ‘to have my disease go away forever.’ We are so thankful to our donors and our cystinosis families who had faith and believed this day would come.”

Dr. Cherqui says if this is successful it could help more than just people with cystinosis:

“We were thrilled that the stem cells and gene therapy worked so well to prevent tissue degeneration in the mouse model of cystinosis,. This discovery opened new perspectives in regenerative medicine and in the application to other genetic disorders. Our findings may deliver a completely new paradigm for the treatment of a wide assortment of diseases including kidney and other genetic disorders. If so, CRF, through their years of support will have helped an untold number of patients with untreatable, debilitating diseases.”

Those with questions on the trials can call toll free: 844-317-7836 (STEM) and/or visit www.cystinosisresarch.org

Stem Cell Agency’s supporting role in advancing research for rare diseases

/ Kevin McCormack / Leave a comment

Orchard

The recent agreement transferring GSK’s rare disease gene therapies to Orchard Therapeutics was good news for both companies and for the patients who are hoping this research could lead to new treatments, even cures, for some rare diseases. It was also good news for CIRM, which played a key role in helping Orchard grow to the point where this deal was possible.

In a news release, Maria Millan, CIRM’s President & CEO, said:

“At CIRM, our value proposition is centered around our ability to advance the field of regenerative medicine in many different ways. Our funding and partnership has enabled the smooth transfer of Dr. Kohn’s technology from the academic to the industry setting while conducting this important pivotal clinical trial. With our help, Orchard was able to attract more outside investment and now it is able to grow its pipeline utilizing this platform gene therapy approach.”

Under the deal, GSK not only transfers its rare disease gene therapy portfolio to Orchard, it also becomes a shareholder in the company with a 19.9 percent equity stake. GSK is also eligible to receive royalties and commercial milestone payments. This agreement is both a recognition of Orchard’s expertise in this area, and the financial potential of developing treatments for rare conditions.

Dr. Millan says it’s further proof that the agency’s impact on the field of regenerative medicine extends far beyond the funding it offers companies like Orchard.

“Accelerating stem cell therapies to patients with unmet medical needs involves a lot more than just funding research; it involves supporting the research at every stage and creating partnerships to help it fulfill its potential. We invest when others are not ready to take a chance on a promising but early stage project. That early support not only helps the scientists get the data they need to show their work has potential, but it also takes some of the risk out of investments by venture capitalists or larger pharmaceutical companies.”

CIRM’s early support helped UCLA’s Don Kohn, MD, develop a stem cell therapy for severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID). This therapy is now Orchard’s lead program in ADA-SCID, OTL-101.

Sohel Talib, CIRM’s Associate Director Therapeutics and Industry Alliance, says this approach has transformed the lives of dozens of children born with this usually fatal immune disorder.

“This gene correction approach for severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) has already transformed the lives of dozens of children treated in early trials and CIRM is pleased to be a partner on the confirmatory trial for this transformative treatment for patients born with this fatal immune disorder.”

Dr. Donald B. Kohn UCLA MIMG BSCRC Faculty 180118Dr. Kohn, now a member of Orchard’s scientific advisory board, said:

“CIRM funding has been essential to the overall success of my work, supporting me in navigating the complex regulatory steps of drug development, including interactions with FDA and toxicology studies that enhanced and helped drive the ADA-SCID clinical trial.”

CIRM funding has allowed Orchard Therapeutics to expand its technical operations footprint in California, which now includes facilities in Foster City and Menlo Park, bringing new jobs and generating taxes for the state and local community.

Mark Rothera, Orchard’s President and CEO, commented:

“The partnership with CIRM has been an important catalyst in the continued growth of Orchard Therapeutics as a leading company transforming the lives of patients with rare diseases through innovative gene therapies. The funding and advice from CIRM allowed Orchard to accelerate the development of OTL-101 and to build a manufacturing platform to support our development pipeline which includes 5 clinical and additional preclinical programs for potentially transformative gene therapies”.

Since CIRM was created by the voters of California the Agency has been able to use its support for research to leverage an additional $1.9 billion in funds for California. That money comes in the form of co-funding from companies to support their own projects, partnerships between outside investors or industry groups with CIRM-funded companies to help advance research, and additional funding that companies are able to attract to a project because of CIRM funding.