A Medical Device Daily

Cerus (Concord, California) said that it has spun off certain assets that make up its immunotherapy programs, including its Listeria and KBMA platform technologies, to a newly formed independent company financed by a syndicate of venture capital firms.

Cerus received an equity interest of about 15.5% of the new company's fully diluted equity. Subject to the satisfaction of milestones, Cerus is eligible to receive up to an additional $1.5 million of equity in the new company or, under certain circumstances, in cash.

In addition to equity, Cerus is eligible to receive future cash milestone payments of up to in excess of $90 million, as well as royalty payments, if vaccine candidates generated from the transferred assets are successfully developed and commercialized.

Cerus is no longer funding operations of the immunotherapy business that has been transferred to the new company. As part of the transaction, David Cook, PhD and Thomas Dubensky, PhD, have joined the new company as CEO and chief scientific officer, respectively. Both were members of Cerus' executive management team.

With the spin-off of the immunotherapy business completed, Cerus said it now is solely focused on commercializing the Intercept Blood System. Both the Intercept platelet and plasma systems have been approved and are being sold in Europe and in other countries that recognize the CE mark.