AstraZeneca (AZ) has announced a collaboration and investment agreement with Cellectis aimed at accelerating the development of therapeutics in areas including oncology, immunology and rare diseases, with the deal potentially worth over $2.2bn.
AZ outlined that the deal gives it access to the French biotech’s proprietary gene editing technologies and manufacturing capabilities to design novel cell and gene therapy products and strengthen its “growing offering in this space”.
The Anglo-Swedish drugmaker added that it had exclusive rights to 25 genetic targets, from which up to ten candidate products could be explored for development.
Marc Dunoyer, chief strategy officer at AZ and chief executive officer of Alexion, AZ’s rare disease unit, said: “The differentiated capabilities Cellectis has in gene editing and manufacturing complement our in-house expertise and investments made in the past year.
“AZ continues to advance our ambition in cell therapy for oncology and autoimmune diseases as well as in genomic medicine, which has potential to be transformative for patients with rare diseases.”
Under the terms of the agreement, AZ will pay $105m to Cellectis by the end of the year, consisting of a $25m upfront cash payment and an $80m equity investment. A further $140m equity investment is expected in early 2024, which will give AZ a stake of approximately 44% in Cellectis.
Cellectis will also be eligible to receive an investigational new drug option fee and development, regulatory and sales-related milestone payments ranging from $70m up to $220m per each of the ten candidate products, plus tiered royalties.
André Choulika, chief executive officer of Cellectis, described AZ as “the perfect match” for the company.
“This collaboration will allow us to leverage our pioneering research in gene editing and cell therapies, as well as our cutting-edge capabilities in manufacturing, with the ambition to bring potentially life-saving therapies to patients with unmet medical need,” he said.
AZ has announced several collaborations and investments in the past year. In September, Alexion partnered with AI-drug discovery biotech Verge Genomics to identify new drug targets for rare neurodegenerative and neuromuscular diseases, with the deal potentially worth over $840m.
The rare disease unit also announced in July that it would be paying $1bn to acquire Pfizer’s early-stage gene therapy portfolio to build on its capabilities in genomic medicine.