Gilead Unit, Sangamo Therapeutics Enter Worldwide Collaboration

(RTTNews) - Kite, a Gilead Company (GILD) and Sangamo Therapeutics, Inc. (SGMO) announced a worldwide collaboration using Sangamo's zinc finger nuclease technology platform for the development of next-generation ex vivo cell therapies in oncology. Sangamo will receive an upfront payment of $150 million and is eligible to receive up to $3.01 billion in potential payments, aggregated across 10 or more products utilizing Sangamo's technology, based on the achievement of certain research, development, regulatory and successful commercialization milestones. Sangamo would also receive tiered royalties on sales of potential future products resulting from the collaboration.

Kite will use Sangamo's ZFN technology to modify genes to develop next-generation cell therapies for autologous and allogeneic use in treating different cancers. Kite will be responsible for all development, manufacturing and commercialization of products under the collaboration, and will be responsible for agreed upon expenses incurred by Sangamo.

John Milligan, Gilead's CEO, said: "The emergence of gene editing as a tool to edit immune cells holds promise in the development of therapies with potentially improved safety, efficacy and efficiency. We believe Sangamo's zinc finger nucleases provide the optimal gene editing platform, and we look forward to working with Sangamo to accelerate our efforts to develop next-generation autologous cell therapies, as well as allogeneic treatments that can be accessed more conveniently in the hospital setting for people living with cancer."