Japanese drugmaker Astellas, through its fully owned subsidiary Xyphos Biosciences, has teamed up with Poseida Therapeutics to develop novel allogeneic cell therapies in Oncology.
Xyphos and Poseida have signed a research collaboration and license agreement.
The collaboration aims to develop convertible chimeric antigen receptor (convertibleCAR) programs by combining cell therapy platforms from both companies.
Poseida develops differentiated cell and gene therapies for certain cancers and rare diseases.
Its pipeline includes allogeneic CAR-T cell therapy product candidates in oncology, for both solid and liquid tumours, addressing patient populations with high unmet medical needs.
Xyphos deploys a unique ACCELTM technology platform that leverages its convertibleCAR in combination with unique MicAbodies to target tumour cells.
Poseida president and CEO Kristin Yarema said: “We are excited to expand our relationship with Astellas, where we share a vision that cutting-edge, off-the-shelf cell therapies can address significant unmet needs of patients with solid tumour malignancies.
“Today’s agreement further reinforces the economic value of Poseida’s highly differentiated non-viral technologies and enables development in areas beyond our core pipeline focus. It also highlights Poseida’s role as the partner of choice in allogeneic CAR-T.”
Under the terms of the agreement, Poseida will combine its unique allogeneic CAR-T platform with Xyphos` ACCELTM technology to create one Poseida-developed CAR-T construct.
The CAR-T construct will form the basis of two convertibleCAR product candidates targeting solid tumours.
Xyphos will pay Poseida the research costs and assume responsibility for developing and future commercialising products generated from the collaboration.
Poseida will receive $50m in upfront payments, potential development, sales milestone payments of up to $550m, and tiered royalties as a percentage of net sales.
In August last year, Astellas announced its plans to make a $50m strategic investment in Poseida to help redefine its cancer cell therapy.
Astellas chief strategy officer (CStO) Adam Pearson said: “At Astellas, we have a strong commitment to developing novel treatments for patients with cancer and have positioned Immuno-Oncology as a Primary Focus of our R&D strategy.
“By leveraging our extensive expertise, experience in cancer biology and unique technologies, we are focused on reinvigorating the immune system`s ability to discover, disarm and destroy cancers in more patients.
“By combining the ACCELTM platform with Poseida`s elegant and cutting-edge genetic editing platforms, we believe the collaboration will bring synergies between the two companies` breakthrough research and will ultimately lead to expansion of Astellas` portfolio and to delivery of innovative CAR-T cell therapies to cancer patients.”
