SonoThera™ Announces Research Collaboration with Janssen Pharmaceuticals to Accelerate Development of Ultrasound-Guided Nonviral Gene Therapy Platform

SonoThera, a biotechnology company dedicated to treating the root cause of human diseases through genetic therapy, has announced that it entered into a research collaboration agreement with Janssen Pharmaceuticals, one of the Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson. The collaboration focuses on delivery of nucleic acids to non-liver organ targets and diseases. This agreement was facilitated by Johnson & Johnson Innovation.

The collaboration will allow SonoThera and Janssen to work together on a novel approach for delivering next-generation DNA and RNA-based nucleic acid-based therapeutics by leveraging SonoThera’s proprietary, ultrasound-guided nonviral gene delivery platform.

“We are thrilled to announce this collaboration with Janssen, as it represents an important step forward in our mission to develop genetic medicines that treat the root cause of human disease,” said Kenneth Greenberg, PhD, co-founder and chief executive officer of SonoThera. “We remain deeply committed to developing genetic medicines targeting organ systems which pose significant delivery challenges using existing gene therapy modalities and look forward to further accelerating key programs within our nonviral gene therapy platform development through this collaboration.”

SonoThera’s ultrasound-guided platform uses sonoporation, a microbubble-mediated biophysical process to non-invasively deliver genetic payloads of diverse formats and sizes, selectively targeting a wide range of organs within the body. Unlike traditional gene therapies, the technology does not require viral vectors which can be immunogenic and lead to both safety and efficacy challenges.