ProQR Therapeutics offers update on sale of ophthalmic assets

ProQR Therapeutics N.V. today provided an update that its previously announced agreement to divest the Company’s late-stage ophthalmic assets to Laboratoires Théa S.A.S. has been terminated.

According to a news release, the completion of the transaction was conditional on Théa entering into employment agreements with a number of key ophthalmology personnel from ProQR.

According to ProQR, some of the ophthalmology personnel decided not to continue employment at Théa. As a result, the closing condition for the transaction cannot be fulfilled and Théa terminated the agreement.

Daniel A. de Boer, founder and CEI of ProQR, said while the company was disappointed the sale of the ophthalmology programs to Théa will not proceed, the primary focus at ProQR remains on the company’s Axiomer RNA editing platform.

“We look forward to advancing our wholly owned pipeline with an initial focus on targets for cholestatic and cardiovascular diseases, in addition to our partnership with Lilly, as we work to develop a new class of therapies for patients with high unmet need,” de Boer said in a news release.

ProQR is developing a next-generation RNA technology called Axiomer, which the company noted in a news release uses a cell’s own editing machinery called ADAR to make specific single nucleotide edits in RNA to reverse a mutation or modulate protein expression and could potentially yield a new class of medicines for both rare and prevalent diseases with unmet need. Based on our unique proprietary RNA repair platform technologies we are growing our pipeline with patients and loved ones in mind.