LONDON, UK: Syncona, a healthcare company that creates, builds and scales global leaders in life science, has made a non-binding offer to buy the rest of Freeline Therapeutics, a gene therapy company that Syncona co-founded in 2015.

Syncona already owns about 57.9% of Freeline’s shares and wants to pay $5.00 in cash for each American Depositary Share that it does not own.

This is 20% more than the average price of $4.16 since Freeline released positive data on its FLT201 gene therapy programme for Gaucher disease on 4 October 2023.

Syncona believes that FLT201 has the potential to transform the lives of patients with Gaucher disease, a serious condition that needs better treatments. Syncona hopes to talk to Freeline and its representatives about its offer, but there is no guarantee that the deal will happen.

A special committee of independent directors of Freeline, with their own legal and financial advisors, will review the offer. Chris Hollowood, who is Syncona’s CEO and a Freeline board member, will not be part of the committee.