Adaptimmune Therapeutics has struck a major new agreement aimed at T-cell therapies.
Earlier this week, the company announced the collaboration and license agreement with Genentech, a member of the Roche Group, “to develop and commercialize allogenic cell therapies to treat multiple oncology indications” according to the press release.
Adaptimmune is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical which developed SPEAR (Specific Peptide Enhanced Affinity Receptor) T-cell platform that enables the engineering of T-cells to target and destroy cancer across multiple solid tumors.
As part of the agreement, Adaptimmune will receive an upfront payment of $150 million, and another $150 million dollars over the five years. In addition, they have the potential to obtain R&D, regulatory and commercial milestones payments potentially exceeding $3 billion in aggregate value, as well as royalties, across multiple programs.
“Through this collaboration, our platform will form the basis of a personalized allogeneic cell therapy vision, where any patient can receive a T-cell product for their cancer; a significant step towards our goal of making cell therapies both curative and mainstream,” Adaptimmune’s CEO, Adrian Rawcliffe, said in a statement.
For each component of the partnership, Adaptimmune will develop clinical candidates using its induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) derived allogeneic platform to produce T-cells (iT cells), while Genentech will handle clinical development and commercialization.
After the news was released, Adaptimmune’s stock soared 20% within five days.
