Sangamo's 'zinc finger' picks $13M payment from Shire for hemophilia

Shares of Sangamo BioSciences Inc. surged more than 25 percent after the Richmond-based company said it would work with Shire plc to develop drugs for hemophilia and other diseases.
Shire (NASDAQ: SHPGY) will pay Sangamo (NASDAQ: SGMO) $13 million upfront for exclusive worldwide rights to Sangamo’s “zinc finger” protein technology to target up to seven genes to stop the bleeding disorders hemophilia A and B.
The agreement, concluded Tuesday, will continue for six years.

Sangamo stock falls after failed mid-stage trial

A study involving Sangamo BioSciences Inc.’s keystone zinc finger protein technology failed in a mid-stage study, the company said Monday.
Sangamo’s stock (NASDAQ: SGMO) was down 24 percent — or $1.04 per share — in mid-day trading after the Richmond company said it will abandon the drug, SB-509, and concentrate on using its zinc-finger technology to treat patients with the AIDS virus.

Awaiting trial results, Sangamo pushes on with zinc finger technology

Sangamo BioSciences Inc. 's gene-editing technology could produce exciting commercial news on the horizon. But the Richmond company isn't resting on what may happen — it continues to gather scientific evidence around the technology.
The zinc finger technology has been described as a kind of "molecular scissors" that cuts and replaces pieces of a gene. So instead of treating a disease, Sangamo's work could provide a functional cure for some big-name diseases like AIDS and hemophilia.
Talk like that puts Richmond-based Sangamo (NASDAQ: SGMO) dead-center in the targets of potential investors and of doubters, too.

Big NIH grant awards show Bay Area still at center of HIV fight

The Bay Area continues to innovate at the center of the fight against HIV, winning a couple of major National Institutes of Health grants aimed at HIV reservoirs.
Dr. Steven Deeks and Dr. Mike McCune of the University of California, San Francisco , will work with Rafick-Pierre Sekaly of the Vaccine & Gene Therapy Institute of Florida to define the nature and location of reservoirs — cells where HIV may be undetectable for years — and how those reservoirs are created and maintained. What's more, researchers will develop and test targeted treatments that eliminate HIV reservoirs without broadly activating the immune system, which could activate the virus.
Sangamo BioSciences Inc. (NASDAQ: SGMO) of Richmond will work with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle as part of a $20 million project to develop proteins that directly attack HIV reservoirs. Researchers also will study whether a patient’s immune cells can be made resistant to the virus.

Sangamo to raise $51M in stock offering

Sangamo BioSciences Inc. priced a public offering of stock that it announced on Thursday.
At $7.70 a share, the Richmond company will raise about $51.59 million in the sale.

Sangamo to sell 6.7 million shares

Sangamo BioSciences Inc. will sell 6.7 million shares of stock in a public offering underwritten by Barclays Capital Inc.
Richmond-based Sangamo (NASDAQ: SGMO) will give Barclays a 30 day option to buy up to 1.005 million more shares.

Sangamo HIV project could rewrite story of state's stem cell agency

A consortium that includes Sangamo BioSciences Inc. is pursuing a next-generation stem cell treatment that could provide a longer-term — if not lifetime — barrier to the AIDS virus.
But the fate of California's $3 billion stem cell research funding agency also may rest on the success or failure of the Sangamo collaboration and 13 other "disease teams" that are trying to get into clinical trials within four years.

Sangamo shoots up ahead of HIV data

Tiny Sangamo BioSciences Inc's potential “functional cure” for HIV is getting big attention in advance of a major AIDS scientific meeting.

The 90-employee Richmond company (NASDAQ: SGMO), best known for its zinc finger technology that mediates genes, said its cell therapy, called SB-728, targets a patient’s own CCR5 gene by removing, essentially, the doorknob that HIV turns to gain access to infection-fighting white blood cells.

Sangamo gives layoffs the zinc finger