Poseida Therapeutics and Astellas, under its Xyphos Biosciences subsidiary, have initiated a research collaboration and licensing agreement to develop allogeneic cell therapy programs by combining their innovative cell therapy platforms and technologies.
The companies plan to combine Poseida's proprietary allogeneic chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) platform with Xyphos' Accel platform (which combines its convertibleCAR and proprietary MicAbodies to target tumor cells) to create a Poseida-developed CAR-T construct. This CAR-T construct will then be used to develop two convertibleCAR product candidates targeting solid tumors.
Under the terms of the agreement, Poseida will receive $50 million upfront, plus potential development and sales milestones and contingency payments of up to $550 million in total. Additionally, Poseida is eligible for royalties as a percentage of net sales.
Xyphos will reimburse Poseida for costs incurred as part of the research agreement and will be responsible for the development and future commercialization of the products generated from the collaboration.
In August 2023, Astellas invested $25 million for an 8.8% stake in Poseida and paid an additional $25 million for the right to exclusive negotiation and first refusal to license Poseida’s P-MUC1C-ALLO1 CAR-T cell therapy product candidate.
