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news.Cerus Corporation has spun off certain assets that make up its immunotherapy programs to a newly formed independent company financed by a syndicate of leading venture capital firms in order to concentrate on its blood safety technology.
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With the completion of the spin off of the immunotherapy business, including its listeria and KBMA platform technologies, Cerus is now solely focused on commercializing the Intercept Blood System.
Cerus has received an equity interest of approximately 15.5% of the new company’s fully diluted equity. Subject to the satisfaction of milestones, Cerus is eligible to receive up to an additional $1.5 million of equity in the new company or, under certain circumstances, in cash.
In addition to equity, Cerus is eligible to receive future cash milestone payments of up to in excess of $90 million, as well as royalty payments, if vaccine candidates generated from the transferred assets are successfully developed and commercialized. Cerus is no longer funding operations of the immunotherapy business that has been transferred to the new company.
Claes Glassell, president and CEO of Cerus, said: “The completion of this transaction allows Cerus to focus organizational and financial resources solely on our core strengths in the blood safety business. We remain confident that the immunotherapy programs and technologies that we have transferred to the new company will ultimately prove to represent important advances in the treatment of cancer and infectious diseases.”