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AskBio Knocks Down Enough Hurdles To Raise $235m For Its Gene Therapy Platform

 
• By Mandy Jackson

While some companies rushed into gene therapy and exited after a single setback, Asklepios BioPharmaceutical quietly advanced its programs, identifying challenges and overcoming them one at a time. Now, it's ready to advance multiple programs into the clinic.

DNA

Asklepios BioPharmaceutical Inc. (AskBio) has benefitted from the academic attitude that an experiment that doesn't meet expectations isn't a failure – it's just a hurdle to get over. The company has now found a pair of like-minded investors willing to put $225m alongside $10m from AskBio's founders and board members to advance multiple gene therapies into the clinic.

Research Triangle Park, NC-based AskBio's co-founder Jude Samulski started the company with co-founder and CEO Sheila Mikhail in 2000, when gene therapy was out of fashion in the biopharmaceutical industry following the death of clinical trial participant Jesse Gelsinger, which was attributed to the viral vector used to deliver a gene therapy

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