The announcement that Spark Therapeutics is terminating the collaboration on the epilepsy project CG01 came as a complete surprise to us at CombiGene. At the same time, news like these are something you must always be prepared for when working with drug development. By 12 January 2024, CombiGene will regain the global rights to the epilepsy project. We will evaluate the situation in the coming months and get back to the investor community as soon as we have further information. Although the disappointment over the termination of the collaboration with Spark is very high, there are several positives we can take with us. The CG01 project demonstrates that CombiGene has the ability to through preclinical development create great value in in-licensed research assets and that we also have the ability to out-license assets to a large global pharmaceutical company. In short, you could say that the agreement with Spark verified our business model. 

The most important thing right now is that we brush off the dust of disappointment and continue to develop CombiGene. Our focus is now on continuing the development of the extremely exciting pain program COZY while continuing the work to find new promising research assets for in-licensing. I’ll tell you a little more about the strategy going forward in an interview on page 14 in this issue of Ingeneious.

In the COZY pain program, the peptide-based project COZY01 is currently being developed at a high pace. During the autumn, we have chosen contract manufacturers and preclinical toxicology partners. We have also chosen shingles as the indication we will use in our clinical proof-of-concept study. After proof of concept has been shown, further development will focus on diabetic neuropathy, a common and severe complication of diabetes which is very painful. 

In addition to the development of our proprietary projects, CombiGene is also involved in several industry initiatives. One of these initiatives is GeneNova, which is led by Professor Johan Rockberg at KTH. The goal for GeneNova is to radically reduce today’s high production costs in order to make the new gene therapies available to more patients. In this issue we have a full-sized interview with Johan Rockberg that I really recommend you to read.

Peter Ekolind
CEO