January 3, 2018 8:12am

SGMO closed up +$1.15 or 7.01% to $17.55 with a pre-market indication is a positive +$0.60 or +3.39% after news of the company's $12 million collaboration with Pfizer (PFE) on a gene therapy for two neurodegenerative disorders, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal lobar degeneration. 


SGMO which will be responsible for development will also be eligible for up to $150 million in milestone payments, plus royalties on net sales.

PFE will handle and pay for further development and commercialization for the program and any resulting products; company shares rose 0.2% in premarket trade. Mutations in a certain gene, C9ORF72, are linked to both ALS and FTLD, resulting in motor neuron deterioration for ALS patients and frontal and temporal lobe neuron deterioration for FTLD patients. Neither disorder currently has a cure.

The collaboration will use SGMO's zinc finger protein technology, which engineers zinc finger proteins to recognize specific DNA sequences, in the hope of developing a one-time treatment that would "down-regulate expression of the mutant form of the gene." – BUY;