Sangamo Therapeutics filed a voluntary Chapter 11 petition in the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware on Monday June 23, 2026. The company disclosed only $27.6 million in cash as of March 31 and had been delisted from Nasdaq in May 2026 for minimum-bid-price non-compliance. Two simultaneous asset purchase agreements established the stalking-horse floor. Eli Lilly bid $50 million in cash plus assumption of certain liabilities for the capsid delivery platform, zinc finger platform, modular integrase (MINT) platform, and prion disease program ST-506. Astellas Pharma took the Fabry disease asset isaralgagene civaparvovec (ST-920) under a separate agreement. Both deals are subject to higher-or-better offers under standard Section 363 sale procedures.
Sangamo cut 51 people, approximately 40% of its remaining workforce, the same day. The remaining staff stays through the auction process. The bankruptcy closes a 30-year arc that began in 1995 as the zinc-finger nuclease pioneer through gene editing's commercial first wave, including 2018 hemophilia trials, the Pfizer partnership era, and the eventual loss of Pfizer support in 2024. The transaction signals that gene-editing platform capital is now consolidating into large-pharma hands. For Lilly specifically, the Sangamo MINT and zinc-finger platforms slot alongside the company's $4.5B Indiana Medicine Foundry, the BioArctic BrainTransporter peptide-delivery pact, and the Chai Discovery AI biologics partnership in a broader neurology-and-platform consolidation play. See [[eli-lilly]] and [[astellas]] for adjacent threads.
Gene-editing pioneer Sangamo Therapeutics filed a voluntary Chapter 11 petition in the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware on Monday June 23, 2026, after disclosing only $27.6 million in cash as of March 31 and a May 2026 Nasdaq delisting for minimum-bid-price non-compliance. Two simultaneous asset purchase agreements established the floor. Eli Lilly is the stalking-horse bidder at $50 million cash plus assumption of certain liabilities for Sangamo's capsid delivery platform, zinc finger platform, modular integrase (MINT) platform, and prion disease program ST-506. Astellas Pharma takes the Fabry disease asset isaralgagene civaparvovec (ST-920) under a separate agreement. The Lilly bid covers the assets most relevant to the peptide-adjacent neurology pipeline, with prion protein biology offering platform optionality for Lilly's broader neurodegeneration program. Both agreements remain subject to higher-or-better offers under standard Section 363 sale procedures. Sangamo simultaneously cut 51 employees, approximately 40% of its remaining workforce, with the remainder retained through the auction and sale process. The bankruptcy closes a 30-year arc that began as the zinc-finger nuclease pioneer through gene editing's commercial first wave, and underscores that gene-editing platform capital is now consolidating into large-pharma hands.
The 2026 BIO International Convention closed Thursday June 25 at the San Diego Convention Center after four days, 20,000+ industry leaders in attendance, 130+ sessions across 18 focus areas, and a partnering-meeting volume that BIO sources said matched or exceeded prior-year records. Peptide-relevant headline deals across the convention week: the Insilico Medicine + SK Biopharmaceuticals $2.5 billion AI-neuroimmune drug discovery deal on Day 1 (June 22, $18M upfront + $670M per program in development and commercial milestones); BioArctic + Eli Lilly $800 million BrainTransporter blood-brain barrier delivery pact on Day 2 (June 23); STAT News' Day-3 BIO Readout column behind-the-scenes coverage of Eli Lilly's January Chai Discovery AI biologics partnership (June 24); and the disclosed Lilly-Astellas joint stalking-horse bid for Sangamo Therapeutics assets in bankruptcy (capsid delivery platform, zinc finger platform, modular integrase platform, prion disease program ST-506; Astellas takes Fabry disease asset isaralgagene civaparvovec). Fujifilm Life Sciences showcased a continuous electroporation gene delivery system and high-sensitivity in-line Raman measuring system at its Innovation Showcase. BIO 2027 returns to Boston June 7-10, 2027.
STAT News' June 24, 2026 BIO Readout column (Damian Garde, Allison DeAngelis) delivered behind-the-scenes detail on Eli Lilly's January 9, 2026 collaboration with AI startup Chai Discovery for biologics design, plus an update on the Lilly-Astellas joint bid for Sangamo Therapeutics assets in bankruptcy. The Chai Discovery deal deploys the company's Chai-2 zero-shot antibody design model (reportedly achieving double-digit experimental hit rates and full de novo design capability) plus a purpose-built generative AI model trained exclusively on proprietary Lilly data and tailored to Lilly's discovery workflows. Chai closed a $130 million Series B at $1.3 billion valuation in late 2025, eighteen months after launch. On the Sangamo front, Lilly is in line to acquire Sangamo's capsid delivery platform, zinc finger platform, modular integrase platform, and prion disease program ST-506 in the bankruptcy auction; Astellas is positioned to take Fabry disease asset isaralgagene civaparvovec. BIO 2026 runs June 22-25 at the San Diego Convention Center.