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news.Kite Pharma and Alpine Immune Sciences (AIS) have collaborated to discover and develop protein-based immunotherapies targeting the immune synapse for the treatment of cancer.
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The deal grants Kite an exclusive global license to research, develop and commercialize engineered autologous T cell therapies incorporating two programs from Alpine’s transmembrane immunomodulatory protein (TIP) technology.
As per the agreement, Alpine will receive a $5m upfront payment, additional payments to support its research.
Alpine will also receive milestone payments depending on the successful achievement of pre-specified research, clinical, and regulatory milestones totaling $530m and low single-digit royalty payments on product sales
Alpine will carry out initial research for delivering two programs TIPs with several pre-defined characteristics.
Kite will undertake further research to demonstrate proof of concept. If successful, the company will further engineer the TIPs into various chimeric antigen receptor and T cell receptor (TCR) product candidates.
Kite Pharma chairman, president and CEO Arie Belldegrun said: "The field of immuno-oncology has the potential to significantly improve the outcome of patients with cancer.
"We believe the ability of AIS’ TIP(TM) technology to modulate the immune synapse can be incorporated into engineered T cell therapies to advance CAR and TCR product candidates into multiple tumor types."
Kite Pharma has recently entered into a worldwide license with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for TCR-based product candidates to treat tumors expressing MAGE, include lung, pancreatic, gastric, and breast cancers.