After forging a partnership last year, Astellas is ending the pact with Cartesian Therapeutics and stopping the development of a Pompe disease candidate.
Pictured: Astellas headquarters for the Americas in Northbrook, Illinois iStock/JHVEPhoto
Astellas is putting the kibosh on a potential $340 million licensing deal it inked last year with Cartesian Therapeutics to develop a treatment for Pompe disease, according to an SEC filing on Thursday.
Cartesian said in the filing that it received notification from Astellas stopping the license and development agreement from 2023. The termination will become effective on June 6, 2024.
After the termination, Astellas will have no financial commitments or liabilities related to its Xork product candidate.
Last year, Cartesian—which merged with Selecta Biosciences—granted Astrellas an exclusive license to its IdeXork tech. From this came the candidate dubbed Xork, an immunoglobulin G protease intended to be developed and commercialized to treat Pompe disease in combination with Astellas’s AT845 candidate, an AAV candidate.
Astellas paid $10 million upfront with Cartesian potentially eligible to receive up to $340 million in milestone payments, sales and tiered royalties. The January 2023 deal was originally with Selecta, which merged with Cartesian in November 2023.
The SEC document said Cartesian did not incur any early termination penalties due to Astellas’ move. According to the deal announcement last year, Selecta was responsible for the development and manufacturing of Zork and would maintain the right to develop other indications beyond Pompe.
“Xork has the potential to expand access to life-changing gene therapies by addressing pre-existing immunity to AAV. Most other IgG proteases in development are derived from common human pathogens, and as a result, there is a high prevalence of pre-existing antibodies against these proteases that can restrict their use,” Selecta CEO Carsten Brunn said at the time. “Xork is differentiated by its low cross-reactivity to pre-existing antibodies in human serum.”
The Selecta merger with Cartesian last year included a $60.25 million private financing led by a member of Selecta’s board. The combined company was expected to have over $110 million on hand, which was meant to support the development of the Cartesian pipeline through Phase III of its Descartes-08 T-cell therapy for treating myasthenia gravis.
Before the merger last year, Selecta froze investments in its pipeline and decided to focus efforts on a candidate for chronic refractory gout. This came as Selecta saw slipping cash flows.
Astellas entered into a research and licensing deal with Kelonia Therapeutics in February 2024 to develop new cancer therapies, paying $40 million upfront and $800 million up for grabs for Kelonia in potential milestone payments.
Tyler Patchen is a staff writer at BioSpace. You can reach him at tyler.patchen@biospace.com. Follow him on LinkedIn.
