Megabios To Sign 3rd Deal For Gene Delivery Tech

Megabios Corp of the USA is gearing up to sign its third collaborationwith a top-10 pharmaceutical company for its lipid-based gene delivery technology, according to chief financial officer Patrick Enright in an interview with the Marketletter. The new deal will complement its earlier sign-ups with Glaxo Wellcome and Pfizer.

The new agreement, which was due to close after the Marketletter went to press, will focus on the use of Megabios' MB 191 technology to deliver a single gene by direct injection into tumor sites to correct defects in breast and ovarian cancer.

Megabios has developed delivery technology which achieves high-level, long-term gene expression in target tissues, and by altering the lipid component of the vehicle and/or the relative amounts of DNA plasmid and lipid, a selective delivery and uptake pattern to particular tissue types can be achieved. The mechanisms behind this targeting are not well understood, but one possibility is that, after injection into the body, the lipids get coated with "addressing" factors which may, for example, bind to receptors on target tissues.