Kite Buys Tmunity To Chase Next-Generation CAR T-Cell Therapies

Gilead’s Kite is buying Philadelphia-based private biotech Tmunity Therapeutics for an undisclosed sum, giving it several preclinical and clinical assets, a new platform for “armored” CAR T-cell development, and rapid manufacturing processes.

Kite will also take over a research and licensing collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania (Penn). This includes research funding to Penn and options and licenses to cell engineering and manufacturing technologies developed in Penn laboratories. The collaboration will be extended to 2026, and will include up to 20 targets from Penn research, said Kite.

The acquisition is expected to close in the first quarter of 2023. After closing, employees of Tmunity will join Kite.

“The Tmunity team is excited by the potential to become part of Kite and see what we can accomplish together to write the next chapter on what cell therapy is capable of,” said Beth Seidenberg, MD, Non-Executive Chairwoman of Tmunity and Founding Managing Director of Westlake Village BioPartners.

“This acquisition is about unlocking ways to help more patients, and do so more quickly, than either team could do alone.”

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Clinical-Stage CAR T-cell Player

Tmunity was originally a spin-out from Penn, co-founded in 2015 by Penn professors Carl June, Bruce Levine, James Riley, and Anne Chew to advance early-stage cell therapy research. The co-founders will go on to consult as senior scientific advisors for Kite. 

“Kite has demonstrated an ability to globally scale cell therapy and address the unique challenges and opportunities that cell therapy represents, which are quite different in material ways than traditional pharmaceutical or biotech approaches,” said Tmunity Founder Carl June, MD. 

Tmunity’s armored T-cell platform engineers patients’ cells to be more durable and effective. The company has at least seven programs in development, with four in the clinical phase. 

Assets that will not end up as Kite’s property include a prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) and a prostate stem cell antigen (PSCA), which will be spun out by Tmunity. Last June, the company dropped its PSMA CAR T-cell therapy following two patient deaths in a solid tumor trial, which were linked to neurotoxicity associated with CAR T-cell therapies. 

Kite’s Second Cell Therapy Deal This Month

The cell therapy deal with Tmunity is Kite’s second this month, after an agreement with Arcellx. That collaboration gives Kite ex-US commercialization rights to Arcellx’s Phase 2 candidate, a CART-ddBCMA for multiple myeloma. 

Similar to the Tmunity deal, the transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2023. Upon closing, Arcellx will receive an upfront payment of $225 million, a $100 million equity investment, and potential milestone payments and royalties on sales. The two companies will share the costs of development and commercialization, while Kite will be responsible for manufacturing the cell therapy.

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Joy Lin

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