Gilead Sciences is gaining a capacity for cell therapy in vivo with an organic acquisition of $ 350 million

Gilead Sciences burst into the field of cancer cell therapies by an acquisition. Now, it aims to be part of the next generation of such therapies by buying interus biotherapeutics at clinical stage, an agreement which also gives the company the possibility of developing this type of highly personalized therapy for autoimmune diseases.

Kite, the subsidiary of cell therapy based in Santa Monica, California, of Gilead, concluded a final agreement to pay 350 million dollars in cash to acquire interus startups, companies announced on Thursday. The agreement brings Kite a cancer program at the start of clinical development as well as the technology of the platform that generated it.

The first generation of cellular therapies is cancer treatments by collecting a patient T cells, in engineers and widening them in a laboratory, then rendering them in the patient. Kite has two car-t therapies approved by the FDA for certain blood cancers, Yescarta and Tectus. In 2017, Gilead paid $ 12 billion to acquire Kite.

The process in several stages of manufacturing ex vivo cellular therapy is expensive and can take a month or more. Meanwhile, a patient’s disease can move forward. Before patients receive these cell therapies, they must undergo a preconditioning regime which includes risks of complications. Kite has a large network of authorized treatment centers that effectively produce its cell therapies. In a press conference at the JP Morgan’s annual health of health health conference in January, the executive vice-president of Kite, Cindy Perettie, boasted that the company has the fastest recovery period in the industry 14 days for Yescarta. But in vivo therapy offers the potential to provide treatment to patients even faster.

“In vivo therapy is a promising border that has the potential to transform how we approach patient treatment, moving to more accessible and scalable solutions,” said Perettie in the acquisition announcement.

The interius based in Philadelphia is part of a group of young biotechnologies aimed at overcoming the limits of ex vivo cell therapy by manufacturing therapeutic cells of the chimerical antigen receptors (because) in vivo – inside the body of his patient. This approach avoids the manufacturing infrastructure associated with CAR-T therapies, shorten the calendar so that a patient can receive therapy and eliminates the need for a preconditioning regime.

The technology of the interius platform uses a lentivial vector to target specific cells in the body, offering them useful genetic loads that program target cells to produce car cells. The Int2104 lead therapeutic candidate uses a single viral vector to target T cells and natural killer cells (NK) to produce Car-T and CAR-NK cells programmed to calm down after B cells driven by the disease. Last fall, Interius began a phase 1 test evaluating int2104 as potential treatment for blood cancers driven by malignant B cells. The preclinical data of this program were published in June in the journal Molecular Therapy.

Interius pipeline also includes int2106, which biotechnology develops as a means of resetting the immune system to potentially treat a range of autoimmune diseases resulting from the production of autoantibodies. This preclinical therapeutic candidate leads to the in vivo production of car and car nK cells to target the B cells of disease that express the CD19 protein. Targets and potential indications for a third program, the int2108 discovery stage, remain unclear.

The acquisition of Gilead interius follows other major pharmacy offers this year for biotechnologies of cell therapy in vivo. In March, Astrazeneca agreed to buy a private esobiotec for $ 425 million in advance and an additional $ 575 million linked to the realization of the milestones. Biotechnology based in Belgium had reached early clinical development with the main ESO-T01 program, in vivo cell therapy for multiple myeloma.

In June, Abbvie agreed to acquire Capstan Therapeutics, a spinout from the University of Pennsylvania whose in vivo cell therapies are delivered to their destinations in the body encapsulated in lipid nanoparticles, which does not arouse an immune response such as therapies delivered by viral vectors. Abbvie is committed to paying up to $ 2.1 billion without ensuring a financial break in this figure. Capstan’s Lead program, CPTX2309, is in phase 1 tests as a potential treatment for autoimmune disorders mediated by B cells.

Interius was founded in 2019, based on research in Saar Gill, a doctor-scientist at the Center for Cellular Immunotherapy of the University of Pennsylvania. In 2021, Le Penn Spinout announced a series of funding of $ 76 million co-directed by Cormorant Asset Management and Fairmount Funds. Since its creation, Interus says that it has raised more than $ 141 million.

Leerink Partners has a positive vision of the acquisition of Gilead to the interius. Analyst Daina Graybosch noted that Kite was already present in Philadelphia as well as a research and clinical relationship with Penn.

“We see real potential for in vivo approaches to disturb the ex vivo car-t, given a great security, [cost of goods sold]And the advantages of access should be in vivo to correspond to ex vivo approaches on efficiency, and believe that it is important for the kite to be part of the disturbance, “wrote Graybosch in a note sent to investors.

Photo: Aaronp / Bauer-Griffin / GC Images, via Getty Images