Voyager Therapeutics shares jump after $1.2 billion deal with Novartis

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Jan 2 (Reuters) - Voyager Therapeutics said on Tuesday Novartis would pay $100 million upfront as part of a licensing deal to develop gene therapy candidates.

Voyager, whose shares jumped 35% in premarket trading, would provide Novartis a target-exclusive license to access its RNA-based screening platform and advance a gene therapy candidate in pre-clinical stage for a genetic disorder known as Huntington's disease (HD).

The gene therapies developer is also eligible to receive up to $1.2 billion in certain milestone payments, as well as tiered royalties on global net sales of products incorporating its RNA-based screening platform.

(Reporting by Pratik Jain in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)

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