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Mergers and Acquisitions

Date: 2014-08-11

Type of information: Company acquisition

Acquired company: InoCard (Germany)

Acquiring company: uniQure (The Netherlands)

Amount: €3 million and success-based milestones and royalties.

Terms:

* On August 11, 2014, uniQure, a leader in human gene therapy, announced the acquisition of InoCard GmbH, an early-stage biotechnology company focused on the development of gene therapy approaches for cardiac disease.  Under the terms of the agreement, InoCard shareholders will receive an upfront payment of €3 million (€1.5 in cash and €1.5m in uniQure stock), and certain success-based milestones and royalties. InoCard founders Prof. Patrick Most and Prof. Hugo Katus will join uniQure as Managing Director of uniQure in Germany and Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board, for Cardiovascular Diseases, respectively.

Details:

InoCard has developed a novel gene therapy to preclinical proof of concept, for the one-time treatment of congestive heart failure. 
InoCard’s lead program is a gene therapy to express the calcium-binding protein S100A1, which has been shown by Profs. Most and Katus to be a master regulator of myocardial function. The therapy was developed based on their fundamental discovery that S100A1 is downregulated in CHF and administration of S100A1 has demonstrated in vivo beneficial effects on contractile force, growth control of heart muscle cells and rhythm stability of the heart and is also able to adapt the heart’s energy supply to increased cardiac output. In a porcine heart failure model, treatment with InoCard’s gene therapy AAV-S100A1 demonstrated a 12-month survival rate of 90%.

Related:

Gene therapy

Cardiovascular diseases

Is general: Yes