Collaboration Agreement

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2018

Organization, Consolidation and Presentation of Financial Statements [Abstract]

Collaboration Agreement

10. Collaboration Agreement

On October 16, 2018, the Company entered into a research collaboration agreement with Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc., (“Janssen”), to develop regulatable gene therapy treatment using the Company’s proprietary riboswitch technology. As part of the agreement, the Company will use its proprietary riboswitch technology to engineer regulatable gene therapy constructs encoding proprietary gene sequences from Janssen.

Upon execution of the agreement, Janssen paid the stage 1 fee in the amount of $658,667 and such payment was recorded as deferred research funding. The stage 1 fee is being amortized over the estimated research term of eight months. During the year ended December 31, 2018, the Company amortized $224,576 of the deferred research funding, which was recorded as an offset to research and development expenses. Deferred research funding in the amount of $434,091 is included as other current liabilities on the consolidated balance sheet at December 31, 2018.