BioNTech, Autolus strike wide-ranging licensing and manufacturing deal for CAR-T therapies

BioN­Tech is en­list­ing CAR-T biotech Au­to­lus Ther­a­peu­tics on a part­ner­ship aimed at push­ing both of their CAR-T pro­grams to­ward com­mer­cial­iza­tion, with an eye on its new part­ner’s pro­grams as well as man­u­fac­tur­ing ca­pa­bil­i­ties.

As part of the wide-rang­ing agree­ment, BioN­Tech will pur­chase $200 mil­lion of Au­to­lus’ shares in a pri­vate place­ment, plus dish out a cash pay­ment of $50 mil­lion.

In ex­change, BioN­Tech will re­ceive up to mid-sin­gle dig­it roy­al­ty on net sales of Au­to­lus’ lead CD19 ther­a­py, obe-cel, which is now un­der re­view at the FDA for re­lapsed/re­frac­to­ry adult B cell acute lym­phoblas­tic leukemia. It will al­so have an op­tion to get a prof­it share on Au­to­lus’ oth­er CAR-T ther­a­pies, AU­TO1/22 and AU­TO6NG, in any can­cer type, if it co-sup­ports de­vel­op­ment and com­mer­cial­iza­tion. Au­to­lus will be el­i­gi­ble to re­ceive an op­tion ex­er­cise fee, mile­stone pay­ments and co-fund­ing of de­vel­op­ment ex­pens­es.

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