Syncona invests £83.1m in Gyroscope and Achilles
Syncona on Tuesday confirmed investments of £48.0m in retinal gene therapy group Gyroscope Therapeutic and £35.1m in cancer immunotherapies developer Achilles Therapeutics.
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Its investment in Gyroscope, which allowed the FTSE 250-listed company to maintain its 80.0% stake in the business, was part of a £50.4m Series B financing and brought Syncona's total commitment to the company since its foundation to £82.0m.
The funding was meant to allow Gyroscope, which ws targeting a treatment for one of the leading causes of blindness, for which there was no therapy yet, to complete a phase 1/2 study, commence a phase 2 study and expand the use of its surgical delivery platform in the clinic.
Meanwhile, the investment in Achilles was part of a £100m Series B financing, which would leave Syncona with an ownership stake in the business of 44.0% as opposed to the 69.0% stake it had previously held.
Proceeds from the financing were expected to enable the business to deliver two human proof-of-concept studies in Achilles' first two programmes in non-small cell lung cancer and melanoma, with the funds also expected to enable Achilles to continue building out its manufacturing capabilities and broaden its growing solid tumour pre-clinical product pipeline.
Syncona's chief investment officer, Chris Hollowood, who was also chairman of Gyroscope, said that the investments further demonstrated Syncona's strategy to scale companies ambitiously so that they can become global leaders in their domain.
Syncona shares were up 1.35% at 232.61p at 0831 BST.