Acceleration of rare disease therapeutic development: a case study of AGIL-AADC.

Rare-disease drug development is both scientifically and commercially challenging. This case study highlights Agilis Biotherapeutics (Agilis), a small private biotechnology company that has developed the most clinically advanced adeno-associated virus (AAV) gene therapy for the brain. In an international collaboration led by Agilis with National Taiwan University (NTU) Hospital and the Therapeutics for Rare and Neglected Diseases (TRND) program of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) at the National Institutes of Health, Agilis' gene therapy for aromatic l-amino acid decarboxylase deficiency (AADC), AGIL-AADC, was granted biologics license application (BLA)-ready status by the FDA in 2018, only 18 months after being licensed from NTU by Agilis. Here, we highlight the factors that enabled this remarkable pace of successful drug development for an ultra-rare disease.