Audentes takeout signals pharma's continued interest in gene therapy manufacturing

Gene therapy companies with their own manufacturing operations are continuing to catch the eye of big pharmas. In the wake of Astellas' $3 billion takeout of Audentes on Monday, several gene therapy players saw stock gains Tuesday, with the biggest gains tied to those with established or planned in-house manufacturing capabilities.

While gene therapy companies have largely relied on external manufacturers to produce clinical grade viral vectors, resulting in a bottleneck for new therapeutics, several companies including Audentes Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:BOLD), uniQure N.V. (NASDAQ:QURE), RegenxBio Inc. (NASDAQ:RGNX) and MeiraGTx Holdings plc (NASDAQ:MGTX) have instead opted to develop internal cGMP manufacturing, and others such as Orchard Therapeutics plc (NASDAQ:ORTX) have announced plans to build cGMP facilities (see "Gene Therapy's Make or Buy Choice")...