Gilead's Kite, Appia Bio to Collaborate on Allogeneic Cell Therapies for Cancer >GILD

On August 5, 2021, Market Watch reported- Gilead Sciences Inc. on Thursday said its Kite unit signed a collaboration and license agreement with biotechnology startup Appia Bio Inc. to research and develop allogeneic cell therapies for cancer.

The Foster City, Calif., biopharmaceutical company said Appia would receive an upfront payment, an equity investment, and additional milestone payments for a total value of up to $875 million, along with royalties on product sales.

Gilead said Appia, founded last year, is developing engineered allogeneic cell therapies from hematopoietic stem cells for cancer patients.

The company said Kite, a cancer immunotherapies company it bought in late 2017 for nearly $12 billion, and Appia would develop chimeric antigen receptor-engineered invariant natural killer T cells using Appia's ACUA technology platform for allogeneic cell therapy.

Gilead said Appia would be responsible for preclinical and early clinical research of two product candidates engineered with chimeric antigen receptors provided by Kite, which in turn would be responsible for the development, manufacturing and commercialization of the product candidates.

Write to Colin Kellaher at colin.kellaher@wsj.com