Sangamo Therapeutics disclosed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission this week that its collaboration and license agreements with Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research and Biogen have been terminated.
The genomic medicines company was informed on March 13 that the deal with Novartis will end on June 11, while Biogen said on March 17 that its deal will lapse on June 15, per the filing.
Sangamo said both companies indicated that their respective decisions to terminate the collaboration agreements were due to separate, recent strategic reviews.
Novartis and Sangamo signed the agreement in July 2020 to research gene regulation therapies to treat three neurodevelopmental disorders. The agreement was set to expire in July in conjunction with Sangamo’s expected delivery of zinc finger protein transcription factors to Novartis for each of its three programs.
Going forward, Sangamo said it will continue to investigate alternative options to advance these programs, including either internally or with another collaboration partner.
Per terms of the agreement, Novartis paid Sangamo a $75 million upfront license fee. Sangamo was also eligible to earn up to $270 million in milestone payments as well as royalties on sales of products resulting from the collaboration.
Meanwhile, Biogen and Sangamo initially teamed on the agreement in February 2020 to research gene regulation therapies to treat neurological diseases. Like the Novartis situation, Sangamo said it would look at options to advance the programs forward, whether by itself or with another partner.
From the financial perspective, Biogen paid a $125 million upfront licensing fee and entered into a stock purchase agreement wherein the biotech company bought about $225 million worth of Sangamo’s common stock.
Additionally, Sangamo was eligible to earn up to $2.37 billion in milestone payments from Biogen.
The two agreements made material impacts on Sangamo’s bottom line, according to its most recent earnings report. The company reported $111.3 million in revenues in 2022, marking a slight increase compared to 2021.
The company added that the full-year revenue bump was primarily attributed to increases in revenues related to its collaboration agreements with Kite Pharma and Novartis, though it was partially offset by decreases in revenue related to the agreement with Biogen.
