Science
Untapping Potential
There is an urgent need for improved viral vector technology to meet the needs for the wide array of gene therapies in early-stage development, which FDA estimates will lead to 20 approved products per year by 2025.1 Conventional AAVs offer little-to-no therapeutic window, requiring high doses that are associated with substantial toxicity from off-target effects. This risk/benefit imbalance has resulted in numerous development setbacks, delays, disappointments, and lost investment. When dosed intravenously, proprietary Voyager capsids may fill this need, as they have been shown to penetrate the blood-brain barrier in non-human primates and achieve widespread transgene expression that is superior to conventional AAV serotypes.2
Powering the Next Chapter
Voyager’s world-class vector engineering expertise is creating screening efficiencies that may accelerate scientific breakthroughs. The Company’s TRACERTM screening platform is identifying improved vectors selected to target desired cells and tissues with greater specificity, at lower doses, and with reduced risk of off-target effects compared to conventional AAV. Initial non-human primate data demonstrate TRACER-derived capsids have enhanced tropism for the CNS, and further screening is intended to identify capsids with enhanced tropism for other tissue and cell types that may enable single-dose treatment for a broad spectrum of diseases.2,3
TRACERTM: Tropism Redirection of AAV by Cell-type-specific Expression of RNA
TRACER identified several blood-brain barrier (BBB) penetrant capsids.
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TRACER capsid demonstrates unprecedented CNS transduction in non-human primates.
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TRACER can be designed to target tissues with high specificity.
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TRACER can be targeted to identify capsids for a diverse set of tissue and cell types.
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Vectorized Antibodies
Leveraging novel TRACER capsids and systemic delivery, Voyager’s vectorized antibody platform is capable of delivering payloads to the brain that express both secreted antibodies and intrabodies, which act within cells such as neurons. The diversity of vectorized antibody payloads create the potential to engage targets that would otherwise be undruggable or unreachable.
2 Mol Ther Methods Clin Dev. 2020 Dec 23;20:366-378.
3 Nonnenmacher, et al. “RNA-driven Evolution of AAV Capsid Libraries Identifies Variants with High Transduction Efficiency in Non-Human Primate Central Nervous System.” ASGCT 2021.
