Cellectis soars as Pfizer fronts $80m for immuno-oncology
This article was originally published in Scrip
Executive Summary
Pfizer is paying $80m up front to French company Cellectis for access to its CAR-T platform, an allogeneic cell therapy approach to treating cancer with the aim of developing 'off-the-shelf' immunotherapies. Cellectis's Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-cell (CAR-T) technology uses engineered T-cells from a single donor for use in multiple patients, compared with autologous approaches which require engineering of a patient's own T-cells to target tumor cells.
You may also be interested in...
Deal Watch: GSK Gets Rights To Spero’s Phase III Antibiotic
GSK takes equity stake in Spero, and global rights to tebipenem except for certain Asian markets. Merck KGaA gets rights to Nerviano’s next-generation PARP inhibitor for cancer.
Gilead Partners With Sangamo For Gene Editing As It Builds Up Kite's Cell Therapy Platform
Gilead committed more than $3bn via its subsidiary Kite to license Sangamo's zinc finger technology for gene editing that may deliver improved T cell therapies for cancer. More deals are expected in this space as Gilead builds its cell therapy platform after buying Kite last year.
Rising Tide Lifts All CAR-T Ships After Gilead/Kite Deal, Kymriah Approval
Excitement around cell therapy has been building in recent years, but companies expect interest to accelerate after Gilead agreed to buy Kite for $11.9bn and Novartis won the first ever CAR-T approval.