Adverum Biotechnologies, Inc. (Nasdaq:ADVM), a clinical-stage gene therapy company targeting unmet medical needs in serious rare and ocular diseases, announced today an extension of its collaboration agreement with Editas Medicine, Inc. (Nasdaq:EDIT). The companies established this collaboration to explore the delivery of genome editing medicines to treat up to five inherited retinal diseases.

“Our collaboration with Editas is focused on utilizing our next-generation adeno-associated viral (AAV) vectors to deliver Editas’ CRISPR-based genome editing technologies to develop novel therapies for debilitating eye diseases,” said Amber Salzman, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer, Adverum Biotechnologies. “Extending our collaboration validates the important work underway to use our next-generation vectors.”

“This collaborative work brings together our best-in-class genome editing platform and Adverum’s industry-leading vectors with a goal of developing new medicines for patients with retinal diseases,” said Katrine Bosley, Chief Executive Officer, Editas Medicine. “Adverum has a distinctive technology and significant ophthalmology experience.  Expanding our relationship is reflective of our strategy to continue investing in our platform in a highly selective manner.”

Under the terms of the extended agreement, Adverum and Editas are extending the research period through third quarter of 2018. Editas maintains a series of options exercisable between now and August 2020.

About Adverum Biotechnologies, Inc.

Adverum is a clinical-stage gene therapy company targeting unmet medical needs in serious rare and ocular diseases. Adverum has a robust pipeline that includes product candidates designed to treat rare diseases alpha-1 antitrypsin (A1AT) deficiency and hereditary angioedema (HAE) as well as wet age-related macular degeneration (wAMD). Leveraging a next-generation adeno-associated virus (AAV)-based directed evolution platform, Adverum generates product candidates designed to provide durable efficacy by inducing sustained expression of a therapeutic protein. Adverum has collaboration agreements with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals to research, develop, and commercialize gene therapy products for ophthalmic diseases and Editas Medicine to explore the delivery of genome editing medicines for the treatment of inherited retinal diseases. Adverum’s core capabilities include clinical development and in-house manufacturing expertise, specifically in process development and assay development.