Just two months after closing a Series C financing round, a small US-based biotech firm is expanding a partnership with one of the world’s largest drugmakers. Watertown, Massachusetts-based SQZ Biotechnologies said Monday it will expand its partnership with Roche in cell therapy, originally announced in December 2015. Under the expansion, SQZ will receive up to $125 million in upfront and near-term milestone payments, along with potentially up to $250 million in clinical, regulatory and sales milestones and development milestones of more than $1 billion. The original partnership announcement included a deal for more than $500 million in upfront and clinical, regulatory and sales milestones. The latest news follows the company’s August announcement that it had closed an oversubscribed Series C round worth $72 million that included new investors Everblue, Illumina Ventures, Invus, Orient Life and Viva Ventures Biotech Group, along with existing investors Bridger Healthcare Partners, Global Health Science Fund, GV, JDRF T1D Fund, NanoDimension and Polaris. Under the development and commercialization partnership, the companies are working on products based on antigen-presenting cells, or APCs, for oncology conditions. The APCs are designed to use native immune functions to spark CD8 T cell responses inside the body. Through presentation of antigens on the cell-surface proteins MHC-I, the company said the cells can directly stimulate CD8 T cell activity and potentially drive anti-tumor effects addressing antigens that other adoptive cell therapies for cancer cannot access. The company’s pipeline consists of several product candidates, all in discovery and preclinical development. These include APCs for human papillomavirus-positive tumors – such as cervical and head and neck – a tumor-agnostic tumor lysate and additional tumor types. It is also developing therapeutic red blood cells for autoimmune diseases like Type 1 diabetes. Roche is not alone among large pharmaceutical companies pinning their hopes on cell therapy. Celgene has a partnership with Cambridge, Massachusetts-based bluebird bio, which has bb2121, a BCMA-targeting CAR-T therapy for multiple myeloma in a registration-directed Phase II trial. The Summit, New Jersey-based company also acquired Seattle-based CAR-T manufacturer Juno Therapeutics for $9 billion in June. Meanwhile, Gilead Sciences spent $11.9 billion last year to buy Kite Pharma, which developed and won Food and Drug Administration approval for the CAR-T Yescarta (axicabtagene ciloleucel). Kite founders Arie Belldegrun and David Chang went on earlier this year to found Allogene Therapeutics, which debuted on the Nasdaq last week with several allogeneic CAR-T therapies that had been developed by Pfizer and France’s Cellectis and Servier. Novartis has also become a leader in CAR-T therapy, with marketed product Kymriah (tisagenlecleucel). Photo: Nicol??s Mero??o, Getty Images
Everblue, Illumina Ventures announced it will expand its collaboration with SQZ Biotechnologies into cell therapy development by offering a new upfront investment of up to $125m. The deal also includes clinical, regulatory and sales milestones worth a potential $250m, while development milestones could land the company more than $1 billion. The announcement follows a similar agreement struck between the two companies in 2015, worth more than $500m in combined incentives, and comes not long after SQZ secured $72m in Series C financing in August from new investors including Roche and Invus.