AstraZeneca has entered the “off-the-shelf” cell therapy space, penning a $1 billion deal to acquire EsoBiotec and its lentiviral vector platform.
The deal will see AstraZeneca scoop up all outstanding equity of the Belgian biotech for a total consideration of $1 billion—split between an upfront payment of $425 million and up to $575 million in developmental and regulatory milestones.
Bringing EsoBiotech onboard will give AstraZeneca access to the biotech’s Engineered NanoBody Lentiviral (ENaBL) platform, which uses lentiviruses to deliver genetic instructions to T cells to recognize and destroy either tumor cells for cancer treatment or potentially autoreactive cells for immune-mediated diseases.
The resulting cell therapies can be administered via an intravenous injection as opposed to the standard process for autologous cell therapies, where the cells are removed from their body, genetically modified and then readministered.
“What this means is that it can offer scalability to a much larger number of patients who can have access to this transformative cell therapy treatment, and the delivery of the treatment can happen in just minutes rather than the many-weeks process, which is the current reality,” Susan Galbraith, Ph.D., executive vice president for oncology hematology R&D at AstraZeneca, told journalists on a call Monday morning.
AstraZeneca currently has seven cell therapy programs in the clinic, led by a BCMA and CD19 dual-targeting CAR-T for multiple myeloma acquired as part of 2023’s Gracell acquisition. However, executives at the Big Pharma told Fierce as far back as 2022 that they were also interested in exploring the off-the-shelf, also known as allogeneic, cell therapy space.