On Sept. 20, 2023, Alexion, AstraZeneca’s rare disease group, completed the purchase and license agreement for a portfolio of preclinical rare disease gene therapy programs and enabling technologies from Pfizer. The acquisition cost AstraZeneca up to $1 billion, with the addition of tiered royalties on sales.Alexion hopes to create new genetic therapies, improving their safety and efficacy; the portfolio will bolster Alexion and AstraZeneca’s current work on genomic medicine.
Alexion entered into the agreement with Pfizer near the end of July 2023. The profile included sever novel adeno-associated virus (AAV) capsids, which have demonstrated to be effective for delivering therapeutic gene cargos for gene therapy and gene editing.
