Adaptimmune Therapeutics has signed a strategic partnership and licence agreement with Roche Group member, Genentech, for the development and commercialisation of allogeneic cell therapies across several cancer indications.
The partners intend to develop allogeneic T-cell therapies for up to five shared oncology targets, as well as individualised allogeneic T-cell therapies.
Adaptimmune, which agreed to handle clinical candidates’ development, will leverage its induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-obtained allogeneic platform to generate T-cells (iT cells) for each component.
Meanwhile, Genentech will oversee the input TCRs and following clinical development and marketing.
According to the deal, Adaptimmune will get $150m in upfront payment and further payments of $150m over five years, unless the deal is terminated early.
Adaptimmune is also eligible for a total of more than $3bn in research, development, regulatory and commercial milestone payments. The company will additionally get tiered sales royalties.
Furthermore, Adaptimmune holds an option to choose to equally share profit and costs of off-the-shelf products in the US.
If Adaptimmune opts in, the company can share half of the profits and losses from US sales on such products. It will get regulatory, sales-based milestone and royalty payments on net sales outside the US.
Roche Pharma Partnering global head James Sabry said: “We believe allogeneic cell therapies could be a game-changing approach for developing personalised therapy platforms based on individual cancer patients’ unique needs.
“This partnership, which combines Adaptimmune’s allogeneic platform with Genentech’s expertise in developing personalised therapies, complements our other efforts to discover and develop personalised cell therapies.”
In May, Genentech signed a multi-programme research collaboration and licence agreement with Pieris Pharmaceuticals to discover, develop and commercialise drugs for respiratory and ophthalmology indications.