Prominent gene therapy researcher Jim Wilson will depart the University of Pennsylvania, where he led one of the field’s largest and most influential academic groups, to found two new private companies.
The new companies, called Gemma Biotherapeutics and Franklin Biolabs, will be formed from parts of the university’s gene therapy program that are being spun out. The majority of the program’s staff will be offered a position at one of the companies, while Wilson will become CEO of Gemma Bio and chair of Franklin Biolabs.
In a statement Wednesday, Wilson said founding the companies was “the next step” to accelerate the delivery of gene therapies to patients.
Gemma Bio will function as a biotechnology company focused on rare disease research, while Franklin Biolabs will operate as a contract research organization and support gene therapy-related services and production. Both will be based in the greater Philadelphia area.
An unnamed investor syndicate backed Gemma Bio, which has licensed three clinical-stage gene therapy candidates from Passage Bio, a company previously founded by Wilson. Funding for Franklin Biolabs was provided by one investor, meanwhile.
The three treatments licensed by Gemma Bio all treat pediatric conditions, including GM1 gangliosidosis and Krabbe disease. Gemma Bio is paying Passage Bio $10 million and is taking over remaining financial obligations that PassageBio had to UPenn.
Wilson has for decades been a major figure in the gene therapy field. He joined UPenn in 1993 and led a trial of an early gene therapy that resulted in the 1999 death of study volunteer Jesse Gelsinger. That tragedy curtailed research for years until safer methods for delivering genes into the body were developed, with significant contributions from Wilson’s program at UPenn.
UPenn research helped lead to three of the gene therapies that have received approval from the Food and Drug Administration and, in addition to Passage Bio, Wilson has helped found Regenxbio and G2 Bio.
Wilson’s running of UPenn’s program has also attracted scrutiny, after reports by The Daily Pennsylvanian documented a toxic workplace culture.
