The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia has formed a collaboration agreement with Bayer. (Philadelphia Business Journal)
This article originally appeared on the Philadelphia Business Journal.
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Bayer has entered into a three-year collaboration agreement with Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia to develop new hemophilia treatments.
Under the terms of the agreement, the pharmaceuticals giant will invest $5 million in a joint research program and have an option to exclusively license the collaboration results. The deal also gives Bayer, which is based Germany, the option of continuing the collaboration with the agreement of both parties.
Hemophilia is a genetic bleeding disorder in which one of the clotting proteins needed to form blood clots in the body is missing or defective. More than 400,000 people live with hemophilia.
The partnership between CHOP and Bayer will focus on the discovery and development of small molecules drugs that can be taken orally to treat hemophilia A and B. The partnership is designed to combine CHOP’s expertise in hemophilia and coagulation with Bayer’s research capabilities.
The main treatment for hemophilia is a replacement therapy often administered multiple times a week, by injection, to help replace the clotting factor that’s missing or low.
“Small molecule therapies could help thousands of people with hemophilia A and B and we are looking forward to combining our strengths in hemophilia research,” said Dr. Joerg Moeller, head of research and development at Bayer.
(Hemophilia A and B differ by the clotting factor that is absent.)
Moeller said the partnership could help “leverage significant opportunities for continued innovation in hemophilia.”
Bayer, which has 117,000 employees worldwide and annual revenue of over $40 billion, markets the hemophilia replacement therapy Jivi and is developing a gene therapy treatment for hemophilia A patients.
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, which has nearly 14,000 employees, posted $3 billion in revenue in fiscal 2018.