Miragen licenses engineering platform for use in future flagship drug candidate

BOULDER — Miragen Therapeutics Inc. (Nasdaq: MGEN) has licensed a protein-engineering platform from California-based Xencor Inc. (Nasdaq: XNCR) as part of its pivot to treating eye diseases.

The Boulder-based Miragen will pay for the licensing with 322,407 shares of company stock and is liable for future development milestone payments in cash, according to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Thursday.

Miragen’s licensing agreement comes a little more than a month after it acquired Viridian Therapeutics Inc. as part of an overhaul of its drug-candidate pipeline and an executive shake-up that saw co-founder and former CEO Bill Marshall leave the company’s C-suite and board.

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The company is now focusing on treating eye diseases caused by an overactive thyroid gland and likely abandoned serious efforts to bring its former flagship lymphoma treatment through clinical trials after it flunked a Phase II study this year.

The licensed technology will be used to reduce the strength and times of doses needed to achieve the desired effect with Veridian’s main drug candidate VRDN-002. Miragen is planning to ask the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for permission to start trials next year.

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