Gilead Sciences’ Kite Pharma has entered into a collaboration and licensing agreement with biotech startup Appia Bio, which will focus on the joint research and development of allogeneic cell therapies for cancer.
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Gilead Sciences’ Kite Pharma has entered into a collaboration and licensing agreement with biotech startup Appia Bio, which will focus on the joint research and development of allogeneic cell therapies for cancer. The collaboration agreement comes six weeks after Kite Pharma signed a $2.3 billion strategic partnership deal with Shoreline Biosciences for the development of off-the-shelf cell therapies.
The new deal between Kite Pharma and Appia Bio will see the two companies working toward researching and developing engineered allogeneic cell therapies from hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) for the ultimate purpose of treating patients with hematological malignancies. In a statement on the partnership, the two companies said they will focus their initial efforts on the development of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-engineered invariant natural killer T (CAR-iNKT) cells, relying on Appia Bio’s ACUA allogeneic cell therapy technology platform to accomplish this goal.
Los Angeles-based Appia Bio, a startup founded in 2020 and launched in March of this year, recently completed a $52 Million Series A financing. The financing round received contributions from 8VC, Two Sigma Ventures, seed investors, Sherpa Healthcare Partners and Freeflow Ventures.
Appia Bio was spun out by Lili Yang, Ph.D., an associate professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Former vice president of corporate development at Kite, Edmund Kim, Ph.D., joined Appia Bio as the chief operating officer, while Kite’s former head of cell therapy development, Jeff Wiezorek, MD, joined the startup as its chief medical officer.
The company’s ACUA technology platform “leverages the biology of lymphocyte development to generate CAR-iNKT cells from HSCs” while offering “the potential for improved efficacy and safety, streamlined manufacturing, and off-the-shelf accessibility of HSC-derived CAR iNKT-cell therapies.”
The collaboration agreement places preclinical and early clinical research responsibilities on Appia Bio for two HSC-derived CAR-iNKT candidates engineered with Kite-provided CARs. Kite will provide Appia Bio an upfront payment, equity investment as well as additional milestone payments totaling up to $875 million, in addition to tiered royalties. In turn, Kite will take on the development, manufacturing and commercialization responsibilities for candidates identified through the research and development partnership.
“We are thrilled to partner with a leader in cell therapy such as Kite, who shares our vision for the potential of iNKT cells in off-the-shelf allogeneic cell therapy,” according to a statement made by Appia Bio’s Chief Executive Officer, JJ Kang, Ph.D. “Our partnership with Kite is an important step toward establishing the broad pipeline potential of our ACUA platform and bringing new treatment options to patients.”
“As a pioneer in cell therapy, Kite is deeply committed to developing the next-generation of cell therapies to treat and potentially cure cancer patients,” added Mert Aktar, Kite’s Vice President of Corporate Development and Strategy. “Through our collaboration with Appia Bio, we’re excited to harness unique biological properties of invariant natural killer T cells to research and develop allogeneic cell therapies for cancer.”
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