Dive Brief:
- Roche has acquired rights to a group of off-the-shelf cancer cell therapy programs from Adaptimmune, agreeing to work with the biotech on five "shared cancer targets" and some additional personalized T cell therapies as well, the companies announced Tuesday.
- The Swiss drugmaker will pay Adaptimmune $150 million now and could add another $150 million over five years if the deal remains active that long. The deal could be worth more than $3 billion if various milestones are met, though that money isn't guaranteed. Adaptimmune can also opt for royalties on sales or to split costs and profits for each project, according to the deal's terms.
- The alliance marks the most significant investment for Roche in cell therapy, a field of research the drugmaker has been slower to embrace than firms like Novartis, Gilead and Bristol Myers Squibb. Prior to Tuesday's announcement, the firm had indicated interest through smaller deals with Tusk Therapeutics and SQZ Biotechnologies.
Dive Insight:
Adaptimmune, like companies such as Bluebird Bio and Cellectis, remains one of the more prominent independent developers of cancer cell therapies. Early pioneers Kite Therapeutics and Juno Therapeutics were snapped up by Gilead and Celgene, respectively, with the Juno portfolio now in the hands of Bristol Myers Squibb.
The treatments Kite and Juno developed and their acquirers now sell, however, are logistically complex. They, as well as another drug from Novartis, require a laborious multi-week production process. Side effects can also be severe, meaning patients have to stay in or near a specialized hospital after the engineered cells are reinfused back into the body.
Adaptimmune has been developing such "autologous" treatments, too. But unlike many of its peers, the biotech has focused on solid tumors, a tougher cell therapy target. Alongside that effort has been an emerging plan to develop off-the-shelf, or "allogeneic" therapies, that could bypass many of the problems autologous treatments face if they prove safe and effective in clinical testing.
Adaptimmune already has a long-running partnership in place with GlaxoSmithKline for its autologous work. But Roche has taken a significant interest in its off-the-shelf research, a notable investment from a company that, while known for its cancer business, had yet to make a large bet on cell therapy.
The deal calls for Adaptimmune to develop T cell-based treatments using its in-house technology, which reprograms donor stem cells that can mature into other types of cells. Roche will be responsible for engineering the receptors on those cells that can latch onto tumors, as well as helping out with development and commercialization.
The additional revenue will help Adaptimmune sustain operations through early 2024 as it attempts to push forward seven clinical programs. The company had $285 million in cash and securities as of June 30, a sum that had declined by $83 million through the first six months of 2021.