Poseida Therapeutics and Roche have signed a strategic partnership and licence agreement to develop allogeneic CAR-T cell therapies for hematologic malignancies.
The research and development (R&D) of various present and new ‘off-the-shelf’ cell therapies against targets in B-cell lymphomas, multiple myeloma and other hematologic indications are included in this alliance.
According to the deal, Poseida will offer either exclusive rights or options to Roche for developing and marketing various allogeneic CAR-T programmes in its portfolio targeting hematologic malignancies.
The programmes include P-BCMA-ALLO1, an allogeneic CAR-T to treat multiple myeloma and P-CD19CD20-ALLO1, an allogeneic dual CAR-T to treat B-cell malignancies.
P-BCMA-ALLO1 is currently being analysed in a Phase I clinical trial while an investigational new drug (IND) application for P-CD19CD20-ALLO1 is anticipated next year.
Poseida is entitled to receive an upfront payment of $110m and near-term milestones and other payments totalling up to $110m in the coming years.
The company could also receive a total of up to $6bn in research, development, launch and net sales milestones and other payments, in addition to tiered royalty payments on net product sales, across various programmes.
Roche and Poseida will also partner in a research programme for creating and developing next-generation features and enhancements for allogeneic CAR-T therapies.
This would help them co-develop further allogeneic CAR-T product candidates for current and new hematologic targets.
Poseida will carry out the Phase I clinical trials and produce clinical materials for a subset of both the company’s portfolio programmes licensed or optioned to Roche and the companies’ future partnership programmes, before transferring the programmes to the latter for additional development and marketing.
Furthermore, Roche will oversee the late-stage clinical development and worldwide marketing of all products under the alliance.
Roche Pharma Partnering global head James Sabry said: “We are excited to partner with Poseida to further explore the potential of allogeneic cell therapies to transform cancer care by developing off-the-shelf products that can address high unmet medical needs for a broad patient population.
“Poseida’s differentiated platform technologies complement our ongoing internal efforts and partnerships to discover and develop cell therapies as a next generation of medicines for patients.”
Cell & Gene Therapy coverage on Pharmaceutical Technology is supported by Cytiva.
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