Wave Life Sciences Ltd. (NASDAQ: WVE) shares moved steadily northward Tuesday, as the clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on unlocking the broad potential of RNA medicines to transform human health, today provided an update on its best-in-class small interfering RNA (siRNA) and RNA editing platform capabilities.
As part of Wave’s ongoing collaboration with GSK, GSK has selected its first two programs to advance to development candidates following achievement of target validation. These programs utilize Wave’s next generation GalNAc-siRNA format and are in hepatology. GSK will provide an aggregate initiation payment of $12 million to Wave for these two oligonucleotide programs. Under the agreement, GSK can advance up to eight programs leveraging Wave’s PRISM™ platform and multiple RNA-targeting modalities (RNA editing, splicing, siRNA, and antisense) with target validation work ongoing across multiple therapy areas.
“We’ve reached an exciting point in our research collaboration, as selection of GSK’s first two programs signals the next phase of our work together to bring transformative RNA medicines to patients,” said CEO Paul Bolno. “The fact that both programs use our next generation siRNA format also speaks to its growing potential within our broader toolkit of RNA-targeting modalities. Beyond these programs, our collaboration is focusing on all Wave modalities, including RNA editing. We expect additional opportunities for payments related to our collaboration in 2024 and beyond.”
WVE shares jumped 20 cents, or 4.1%, or to $5.04.
