Next to endless possibilities in developing friendly viruses

Everyone seems to be talking about gene therapy these days. Small, research-based companies seem to be born almost daily within the area, and they also seem to have a lot in common. A closer look will soon tell you that these companies are in fact all very different, and some are working on applications that are unique to them on a global basis. rAAVen Therapeutics is one of them.

The innovation behind rAAVen Therapeutics (rAAVen) has been developed by researchers at Lund University. The company was founded by Dr Marcus Davidsson, gene therapy specialist, last year as a part of SmiLe, the Life Science-oriented incubator in Lund.

“It has been a most exciting year for us, as we have managed to connect with clients from all over the world in such a short time. We have successfully proven that our innovation and our technology is revolutionary in the sense that it can provide our clients with novel virus vectors, more precisely adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors, which are used to deliver genetic material into cells”, says Marcus Davidsson.

The novelty of rAAVen’s approach

There are around 15 000 research teams working on AAV vectors globally, but the novelty of rAAVen’s approach is what makes the company and its research unique.

“We develop AAV vectors for clients to use in their search for new gene therapies, but we also nurture our own research within advanced gene therapy treatments”, Marcus Davidsson explains. “In less than 12 months, we have been successful in closing deals in both areas, and thus securing funding for the near future”.

Earlier this year, rAAVen partnered with much larger company Myrtelle Inc, based in Boston, Massachusetts, to develop novel recombinant AAV vectors (rAAV). The aim is to advance gene therapy treatments for diseases of the central nervous system (CNS) in which myelin is affected. Myelin is the insulating material enabling proper function of neurons, and if damaged or not properly developed, neurological impulses to the brain are impaired.

Within this partnership, which is the first in the US for rAAVen, the Lund-based team will utilise rAAVen’s unique platform for AAV development. This is in short a combination of novel methodologies within cloning, viral vector production and next generation sequencing. Myrtelle will in turn test the vectors in a range of myelin-based disorders and, if successful, pursue further development.

The partnership may well result in treatments being developed for both rare and more common CNS-diseases.

What will be next?

What will be next for rAAVen? Several milestones have been met in less than a year, but Founder and COO Marcus Davidsson is already planning to expand further.

“What we hope to do next is to attract a few more talents to expand our AAV development team. These talents may already be quite close to us, as we have a lot of research colleagues at Lund University for example. In the long run we hope to attract talents in other areas as well, such as a bioinformatician and hopefully experts within artificial intelligence and machine learning as well. We have identified next to endless possibilities to take our AAV platform further, what we need to do now is to expand our team so that we have the manpower to pursue all these opportunities”, says Marcus Davidsson enthusiastically.