Gyroscope Therapeutics announces research collaboration agreement with Children’s Medical Research Institute 

Gyroscope Therapeutics Holdings plc (“Gyroscope”), a clinical-stage gene therapy company focused on treating diseases of the eye, today announced the company has entered a research collaboration with Children’s Medical Research Institute (“CMRI”) in Australia to develop next-generation clinical capsids, the protein shells of viral vectors used to deliver gene therapies.

A team of researchers from CMRI and Gyroscope will work together in the design and screening of capsid libraries to identify novel capsids for enhanced delivery of ocular gene therapies. Under the agreement, Gyroscope has an option to obtain an exclusive licence for ocular uses of capsids developed through the partnership. The CMRI team is led by Associate Professor Leszek Lisowski,Ph.D.,MBA, a recognised expert in viral vector-based gene therapy, vectorology and genotoxicity, with more than 15 years of experience in capsid generation and discovery.

“Capsids are one of the most critical components of a gene therapy, however, there are some limitations with the capsids available today,” said Jane Hughes, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer, Gyroscope.

“We are excited to collaborate with Associate Professor. Lisowski and the team at CMRI to engineer next- generation capsids supporting our goal of developing a pipeline of differentiated ocular gene therapies that have the potential to be administered in the convenience of a doctor’s office.”

“Gene therapies are being studied in many diseases of the eye and capsids play an important role in maximising the potential benefit of these therapies for patients,” said Associate Professor Lisowski. “We look forward to working with the team at Gyroscope to identify novel capsids that may improve upon the current standard for gene therapies for treatment of diseases of the eye.”

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