Genome editing company Emendo Biotherapeutics Inc said on Wednesday that it has entered into a licensing option agreement with Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited.

As part of the agreement, Emendo will receive an investment in convertible notes from Takeda Ventures Inc, the corporate venture arm of Takeda, and these notes will be converted in Emendo's planned B round financing.

The funds will be used by Emendo to further advance its novel nuclease gene editing discovery platform and proprietary product development programmes. It is moving several preclinical programmes through optimisation, in preparation for moving towards the clinic in a number of promising clinical indications.

Via this licensing agreement, Takeda is granted the option to use OMNI, Emendo's proprietary nuclease programme, to edit two genes for its research and development efforts. Emendo will apply its novel gene editing engineering platform to optimise the OMNI nuclease to have the highest specificity and activity on Takeda's chosen genes. OMNI enables extremely specific gene editing that minimises off-target cuts and allows for highly focused therapeutic intervention in complex genetic diseases.