Troy Short is senior vice president of manufacturing and supply chain at Nanoscope Therapeutics. [Photo: Nanoscope Therapeutics]
Dallas-based biotech company Nanoscope Therapeutics hired Troy Short as a senior vice president overseeing manufacturing and supply chain operations.
Short’s arrival comes at a critical time for Nanoscope’s manufacturing and distribution systems.
The company is seeking approval of Mogenry from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The investigational gene therapy aims to help patients who have retinitis pigmentosa with severe vision loss. Advanced retinitis pigmentosa has limited treatment options.
Short’s “arrival at this stage reflects how seriously we are taking our preparation for launch,” Sulagna Bhattacharya, co-founder and CEO of Nanoscope, said in a statement.
Retinitis pigmentosa is a group of rare eye diseases affecting the retina, the light-sensitive layer of tissue at the back of the eye, the National Eye Institute said. Retinitis pigmentosa causes retinal cells to break down slowly over time. Early symptoms include loss of night vision and peripheral vision. Later symptoms include vision loss and blindness.
A gene therapy launch veteran
Short joins Nanoscope — which has received $12.8 million in institutional and equity investments, according to the data firm Tracxn — with a wealth of experience in the biotech and supply chain sectors.
Most recently, he advised biotechnology companies and investment firms on various issues, including the FDA approval process for gene therapy and other treatments.
Before that, he was chief operating officer of Advanced Medicine, a North Carolina contract manufacturer spun off from Jaguar Gene Therapy. Earlier, he was senior vice president of manufacturing and supply chain at Jaguar.
As vice president of the global supply chain at AveXis, Short played a key role in the rollout of Zolgensma, a gene therapy for treatment of spinal muscular atrophy in young children. After Novartis acquired AveXis in 2018, Short was AveXis’ interim chief technical officer.
Earlier, Short spent 11 years at Hospira, now part of Pfizer, as director of the supply chain for sterile pharmaceutical manufacturing.
“Troy has done what very few people in our industry have done: built and run the supply chain that delivered an approved AAV [adeno-associated virus] gene therapy to patients around the world,” Bhattacharya said.
The road ahead for Mogenry
Nanoscope, built on research conducted at UT Southwestern Medical Center, said it is working on FDA approval, clinical trials, manufacturing and distribution for Mogenry, an in-office treatment.
Last month, the FDA accepted the company’s biologics license application for Mogenry. Approval of the application would give Nanoscope permission to market and sell the drug.
Previously, Mogenry received fast-track and orphan-drug designations from the FDA for treatment of retinitis pigmentosa and Stargardt macular degeneration, another genetic disease affecting the retina.
An orphan drug treats, prevents or diagnoses a disease or condition affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the U.S.
“Mogenry is designed to work regardless of the gene behind a patient’s vision loss. My job is to make sure it reaches them,” Short said in a statement. “My focus will be on strengthening our manufacturing partnerships, building a resilient commercial supply chain, and making sure patients and their physicians can count on product availability upon its potential approval.”
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