Dive Brief:
- Takeda Pharmaceutical on Wednesday said it will acquire GammaDelta Therapeutics, a London-based biotech company specializing in off-the-shelf cell therapy for cancer and the Japanese drugmaker's research partner since 2017.
- The deal, for which financial details were not disclosed, is another example of the "build-to-buy" approach Takeda has taken with several of its research collaborators. In March, the company announced a similar deal to buy Maverick Therapeutics for as much as $525 million.
- GammaDelta's work is based around immune cells of the same name, which the biotech uses as a platform to create allogeneic cell therapies for solid tumors and blood cancers. The company recently began clinical testing of its lead product candidate, an experimental treatment for acute myeloid leukemia, or AML.
Dive Insight:
Takeda, which has made cell and gene therapy a research focus, is turning to partnerships and acquisitions to help fill out its pipeline. In addition to the GammaDelta deal, the large drugmaker recently struck a deal with newly launched Ensoma Therapeutics and, earlier this month, Poseida Therapeutics.
GammaDelta is well known to Takeda, which in 2017 took an equity stake in the company and negotiated an exclusive option to buy it later on.
Takeda has now cashed that chip, agreeing to pay an undisclosed upfront fee and, potentially, other conditional payments. The companies expect the deal to close in the first quarter of Takeda's fiscal year 2022, which equates to between April and June of next year.
The deal will give Takeda access to GammaDelta's allogeneic cell therapy research and another platform based around recruiting the innate immune system to battle tumors. Takeda has also invested in cancer therapies based on natural killer cells, another component of innate immunity.
According to Takeda, GammaDelta's research covers both non-engineered as well as genetically modified allogeneic cell therapies. Its first, dubbed GDX012, is derived from the blood of healthy donors and is meant to treat AML, a blood cancer that's proven more difficult to treat using cell therapy than some other leukemias and lymphomas.
The first dose was delivered to a patient in a Phase 1 trial of the therapy last month, GammaDelta said on Sept. 15.
GammaDelta was built upon research conducted by scientists at Kings College London and the Francis Crick Institute in the U.K. Venture capital firm Abingworth seeded the company with initial funding and joined Takeda in committing as much as $100 million in the 2017 deal that laid the foundation for Wednesday's acquisition announcement.