Date: 2015-10-20
Type of information: Licensing agreement
Compound: T Cell Receptor (TCR)-based product candidates directed against MAGE A3 and A3/A6 antigens
Company: Kite Pharma (USA - CA) National Institutes of Health (NIH) (USA)
Therapeutic area: Cancer - Oncology
Type agreement: licensing
Action mechanism:
Disease: tumors expressing MAGE
Details: * On October 20, 2015, Kite Pharma announced that the Company has entered into an exclusive, worldwide license with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for intellectual property related to T Cell Receptor (TCR)-based product candidates directed against MAGE A3 and A3/A6 antigens for the treatment of tumors expressing MAGE, which include lung, pancreatic, gastric, and breast cancers, among others. The National Cancer Institute (NCI), with Dr. Steven A. Rosenberg, M.D., Ph.D., Chief of Surgery at the NCI and a special advisor to Kite, as principal investigator, is currently conducting two Phase 1-2a clinical trials of TCR-based product candidates targeting the MAGE antigens under a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) between Kite and the NCI. The NCI Surgery Branch has developed experimental therapies for treating patients with metastatic cancer that involves taking white blood cells from the patient, growing them in the laboratory in large numbers, genetically modifying these specific cells with a type of virus (retrovirus) to attack only the tumor cells, and then giving the cells back to the patient. In these protocols, the patient s white blood cells are modified with a retrovirus that has the gene for anti-MAGE-A3-DP0401/0402 or the gene for anti-MAGE-A3 incorporated in the retrovirus (NCT02111850 et NCT02153905)
Financial terms: Pursuant to the terms of the license agreement, NIH will receive from Kite an upfront payment and certain clinical, regulatory, and sales milestone payments, as well as royalties on net sales of products covered by the license.
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