Precision BioSciences, which focuses on genomic “editing” technology, has landed a deal with a multi-billion-dollar biopharmaceutical firm that could be worth as much as $1.6 billion.
The Durham-based company and Illinois-based Baxalta (NYSE: BXLT) announced the deal early Thursday.
Proprietary, Precision technology will be used to target various cancers.
Just a year ago, Precision raised a venture capital round totaling more than $25 million.
In the Baxalta deal, precision will receive an upfront payment of $105 million.
Product sales commissions and milestone payments could add up to $1.6 billion, the companies said.
“The agreement follows another recently established Baxalta collaboration to advance novel therapeutics against checkpoint targets, advancing the company’s strategic commitment to investing in immuno-oncology and building an innovative portfolio of cancer immunotherapies,” Baxalta stated.
Baxalta intends to “develop a broad series of allogeneic chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapies directed towards areas of major unmet need in multiple cancers.”
How CAR T works
As explained in the deal announcement:
“CAR T is widely recognized as a breakthrough technology with the potential to become a curative option for certain malignancies. Most CAR T cell therapy technologies isolate cells from cancer patients’ blood and re-engineer them to specifically target receptors on tumor cells. The reprogrammed cells are multiplied in a laboratory and then returned to the patient to target the tumor. This approach has had initial success in clinical trials for certain tumor types, but persistent scaling challenges remain based on the highly personalized nature of the therapy. Precision BioSciences’ proprietary ARCUS genome editing technology enables the production of CAR T cells derived from healthy donors rather than relying on the patient. This approach aims to overcome the manufacturing-related limitations with existing CAR T therapies and enable a broader range of malignancies to be targeted.”
“Collaborating with Precision BioSciences enables Baxalta to accelerate innovation in immuno-oncology with a next-generation, donor-derived CAR T strategy using a proprietary combination of genome editing expertise and technology,” said David Meek, executive vice president and president of Oncology for Baxalta. “Combining Precision BioSciences’ ARCUS technology with Baxalta’s global infrastructure, expertise and growing immuno-oncology portfolio is a synergistic approach that we believe has the potential to make disruptive approaches available to people with a range of underserved cancers.”
Precision CEO Matthew Kane called Baxaltas an “ideal partner” for research and development in immunooncology.
Up to six “targets” are to be pursued with clinical studies expected to being in 2017.
Baxalta is a $6 billion revenue a year firm.
The back story of Precision
Precision has secured a number of genome-related patents.
VenBio led the over-subscribed venture round in 2015.
Other investors included Fidelity Biosciences, Amgen Ventures, Baxter Ventures, Osage University Partners and the Longevity Fund.
“We are thrilled to welcome such a strong and diverse group of investors as our company enters into this exciting next phase of translational product development,” Kane said in a statement. “This financing will allow us to expand beyond our successful efforts to develop the leading next-gen genome editing platform and significantly accelerate the development of our genome-edited product pipeline.”
Precision’s proprietary technology for genome editing is called ARCUS.
