DiNAQOR acquires Germany-based company

Founded in 2019 by several leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology executives and academics with deep cardiology and gene therapy expertise, DiNAQOR is focused on developing gene therapies for the heart. The company's lead preclinical program, DiNA-001 addresses Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), one of the most common genetic heart diseases, with about 500,000 patients diagnosed with HCM worldwide.

To Advance engineered heart tissue R&D capabilities, DiNAQOR has acquired the Germany-based EHT Technologies GmbH and its proprietary hiPSC platform for disease modelling. EHT Technologies was founded in 2015 based upon research on human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSC) at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf. Cardiomyocytes derived from hiPSC are innovative research technology for cardiac drug development programs. Engineered heart tissues are three-dimensional, hydrogel-based muscle constructs that can be generated from isolated heart cells of chicken, rat, mouse, human embryonic stem cells and hiPSC. Proof-of-concept studies have shown that EHT can be transduced efficiently with adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors, including AAV9, validating the use of this platform for gene therapy applications.

According to Johannes Holzmeister, Chairman and CEO at DiNAQOR, "EHT Technologies' platform is a perfect complement to DiNAQOR's research and development efforts and leaps forward our ability to develop creative approaches for treating heart diseases in the future. EHT's intellectual property and know-how are industry-leading and we are excited to be able to harness its platform at DiNAQOR."

"The EHT technology will accelerate the advancement of our discovery pipeline and bridge the translational gap between the animal model and human disease. We are proud that DiNAQOR is on the forefront of implementing this innovative technology to expedite new therapies into the clinic," said Valeria Ricotti, Chief Medical Officer at DiNAQOR.

Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

(Press release)