Avidity Biosciences advances RNA programs, expands into new therapeutic areas

Avidity Biosciences announced the advancement and expansion of its internal discovery pipeline with the addition of new research and development candidates to treat conditions in skeletal muscle and cardiology. The preclinical programs have been engineered using Avidity’s proprietary AOC platform technology. "With the revolutionary advancement of demonstrating the first-ever successful targeted delivery of RNA into muscle, we are keen to broaden the utility of the AOC platform. We are now pursuing new programs in skeletal muscle and cardiology and believe that there are many more opportunities where AOCs can address debilitating diseases previously unreachable with existing RNA therapies," said Sarah Boyce, president and chief executive officer at Avidity. "We look forward to advancing our own internal research and development programs as well as partnering with collaborators as we work to fulfill our mission to profoundly improve people’s lives by delivering a new class of RNA therapeutics." Avidity continues to advance its three distinct rare disease Phase 1/2 programs in the clinic: AOC 1001 for myotonic dystrophy type 1, AOC 1020 for the treatment of facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy and AOC 1044 for the treatment of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) mutations amenable to exon 44 skipping. Avidity has decided not to pursue research and development programs in muscle atrophy and Pompe disease at this time.