Oxford BioMedica, which last year axed 13 staff, has seen its financial problems solved with a new £34m deal.

The new collaboration with pharmaceutical giant Sanofi-aventis will give BioMedica enough cash to last until 2012.

Sanofi-aventis will help develop BioMedica's gene therapy technique, LentiVector, into a possible treatment for age-related macular degeneration, a major cause of blindness, affecting an estimated 25 to 30 million people in the Western world.

The current leading treatment, Lucentis, requires repeated injections directly into the eye. Biomedica's possible treatment, RetinoStat, could require only one, and could also be safer and more efficient.

Dr Marc Cluzel, of Sanofi-aventis, said: “The ability of Oxford BioMedica’s LentiVector technology to deliver genes into retinal cells efficiently and stably makes it a valuable system for gene-based approaches to ocular diseases. This collaboration is a key step in our strategy to expand our efforts in this field.”

Oxford BioMedica’s Chief Executive, John Dawson, said: “The broad scope of our new partnership is in line with the company’s strategy of reducing risk and maximising the value of our assets.

"By strengthening our financial resources, we are well-positioned for further growth and will continue to build the company through in-house and collaborative drug development.”

Dr Stephen Rose, Chief Research Officer of the Foundation Fighting Blindness, which is collaborating with Oxford BioMedica, said: “This new collaboration between Oxford BioMedica and sanofi-aventis gives even greater hope to patients and their families that novel gene-based therapies may soon be developed to treat their debilitating ocular diseases.”

The new agreement, worth £18m upfront and £16m over three years, also covers treatments for blindness due to three other ocular diseases.

If clinical trials are successful, Oxford BioMedica will receive further undisclosed license fees, milestone payments and royalties.

Last year's cost savings, which led to the loss of more than ten per cent of its workforce, followed a huge fall in its share price when regulators said kidney cancer volunteers in a trial of key drug TroVax should receive no more treatments.

However, this week the company said it was still hoping to develop TroVax. It received £11m from Sanofi-aventis, which has returned the patent rights to BioMedica.