Deals Report: Syncona merging Freeline, SwanBio to form Spur

Months after taking Freeline Therapeutics Ltd. private with a narrowed focus on a gene therapy for Gaucher disease, Syncona Ltd. (LSE:SYNC) is merging it with another portfolio company, SwanBio Therapeutics Inc., rebranding the combined entity as Spur Therapeutics Ltd., and supplying $50 million to advance a pair of clinical programs.

The arrangement is structured as an acquisition of SwanBio by Freeline. The deal adds SwanBio’s SBT-101, a gene therapy for adrenomyeloneuropathy that is in Phase I/II testing, to a pipeline that is led by gene therapy FLT201 for Gaucher disease. Spur is lining up a Phase III study of the Gaucher program to begin next year...