Sensorion announces that the research partnership framework agreement signed in 2019 with the Institut Pasteur (Paris, France) granting Sensorion an option for exclusive licenses to develop and market gene therapy drug candidates from collaborative projects to address unmet medical needs in the hearing field has been extended for a period of five years. The agreement has been amended to be extended up to December 31, 2028, to promote additional development gene therapy programs. SENS-501, the most advanced program within the partnership that targets deafness caused by mutations in the gene coding for otoferlin, defined as a priority in 2019, has met its objectives. The successful completion of the efficacy preclinical package in the frame of the collaboration between Sensorion and the Institut Pasteur advanced the program with the development of the OTOF-GT product (SENS-501) towards clinical stage.

A Clinical Trial Application (Audiogene, Phase 1/2 clinical study) has been submitted in July 2023 in the UK and in the EU to evaluate the safety, tolerability, and efficacy of intra-cochlear injection of SENS-501 in patients suffering from otoferlin gene-mediated hearing loss. The research partnership successfully led to a second gene therapy program with GJB2-GT, announced in 2021, for which a drug candidate, selected in April 2023, is currently in preclinical development. GJB2-GT targets deafness linked to mutations in the GJB2 gene, the most common form of childhood deafness.

Three indications, all linked to GJB2 mutations, are currently being evaluated: early presbycusis, progressive hearing loss during childhood, and congenital hearing loss. Over the past 25 years, the Institut Pasteur, has developed world-renowned expertise in the physiology and molecular pathophysiology of the auditory system with work carried out within the Institut Pasteur 's Genetics and Physiology of Hearing Unit, headed by Professor Christine Petit, and continuing within the Hearing Institute, a research center of the Institut Pasteur. Sensorion has a preferential right on other Institut Pasteur preclinical research programs in the field of genetic diseases of the inner ear, with a view to establishing potential new collaborations.