Cell therapy developer Cellular Biomedicine Group Inc. (CBMG) completed a $120 million series A financing, its first since becoming a private company. The funds will benefit the U.S. and China-based firm’s CAR T pipeline, and the round was jointly led by Astrazeneca-CICC Fund, Sequoia Capital China and Yunfeng Capital. Existing investors including GIC Private Ltd. (formerly Government of Singapore Investment Corp.) and TF Capital also took part.
A collection of CAR T-cell programs originally licensed by Precision Biosciences Inc. to Baxalta Inc. in a $1.6 billion deal are, after handoffs to Shire and Servier SAS, back where they began. Precision said April 15 it would reacquire all development and commercial rights to the programs, including two clinical-stage CD19-targeting allogeneic CAR T candidates, from Servier for $1.25 million in cash, plus the waiver of earned but as-yet unpaid milestones totaling $18.75 million.
Citing the limited data for CAR T therapies in treating multiple myeloma, the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review said their cost-effectiveness for some patients will depend on whether a second dose is needed.
Atara Biotherapeutics Inc. licensed a pair of mesothelin-directed CAR T treatments, ATA-2271 and ATA-3271, to Bayer AG for $60 million up front with the potential for $610 million in development, regulatory and commercialization milestone payments. Atara is also eligible for tiered royalties that peak in the low double-digit percentage of net sales of the two drugs. South San Francisco-based Atara will provide translational and clinical manufacturing services for the two drugs that will be reimbursed by Bayer.
When the first chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR T) therapy, Kymriah (tisagenlecleucel), was approved in 2016 for treating B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia, its developer, Novartis AG, confined the initial rollout to just 20 treating centers. Its label carried a black box warning, because of the risk of life-threatening cytokine release syndrome, and Basel, Switzerland-based Novartis put in place a comprehensive risk evaluation and mitigation system to ensure its safe use. Catamaran Bio Inc., a Boston-based startup that has raised $42 million in seed and series A financing, is considering the administration of similarly engineered natural killer cells in walk-in clinics. “If the product is safe, it can be given as an out-patient treatment,” Chief Scientific Officer Vipin Suri told BioWorld. “As a field, this absolutely has to be our ambition.”
Gracell Biotechnologies Inc. has closed a $100 million series C financing round to advance its CAR T-cell therapy candidates, including autologous product candidate, GC-012F, and allogeneic product candidate, GC-027. Both candidates are in investigator-initiated phase I trials in China.
Crispr Therapeutics AG's first stab at developing an allogeneic CAR T-cell therapy, CTX-110, looks promising, but the efficacy data were overshadowed by a death in the study.
HONG KONG – Xi’an, China-based Yufan Biotechnologies Co. Ltd. has partnered with Pittsburgh-based Abound Bio Inc. to discover and develop antibodies directing CAR T cells against cancer targets.
PERTH, Australia – Sydney-based Chimeric Therapeutics Ltd. has acquired exclusive worldwide rights to develop and commercialize the City of Hope Cancer Center’s chlorotoxin chimeric antigen receptor cell therapy that uses a peptide derived from scorpion toxin to direct T cells to target glioblastoma.
Two California companies – Nkarta Inc. and Poseida Therapeutics Inc. – scored impressive IPOs but with decidedly different post-pricing performance, as Wall Street showed its enthusiasm for the former’s natural killer (NK) cell research by pushing shares (NASDAQ:NKTX) up 166%, to close July 10 at $47.90, an increase of $29.90.
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