Weekly Quick Hits (Greater Philly) – Week of April 24, 2023 By Mark Terry, Alex Keown, and Sarah EllinwoodApril 28, 2023 Funding, Awards and Collaborations The Innovation Space Joins Delaware [….]
Sixteen months since the original announcement, Spark Therapeutics broke ground this week on its Gene Therapy Innovation Center in University City on the Drexel University Campus in Philadelphia. Spark, now a Roche company, developed the first FDA-approved gene therapy, Luxturna. The FDA approved the drug in 2017 to treat patients with confirmed biallelic RPE65 mutation-associated retinal dystrophy.
Gattuso Development Partners and Drexel University formally broke ground today on 3201 Cuthbert Street, a dazzling new life sciences research and laboratory that will become the city’s largest facility of its kind while cementing Philadelphia’s status as an emerging global life sciences research hub.
In 2021, Philadelphia continued to prove why it’s an up-and-coming life sciences and biotech cluster. Current reports state the city received $1.23 billion in National Institute of Health (NIH) funding in 2021 — and that number is expected to be bigger once finalized, said Lauren Gilchrist, Managing Director of Research at Longfellow Real Estate Partners.
Spark Therapeutics, a member of the Roche Group (SIX: RO, ROG; OTCQX: RHHBY) and a fully integrated, commercial gene therapy company dedicated to challenging the inevitability of genetic disease, today announced plans to invest an initial $575M in the creation of a new, state-of-the-art gene therapy innovation center on Drexel University’s campus in the heart of Philadelphia’s University City neighborhood.
