Arie Belldegrun raises $300M, grabs Pfizer’s allogeneic CAR-T portfolio and launches a groundbreaking drive to commercialization
After pioneering one of the first personalized CAR-T therapies to be approved by the FDA, Kite vets Arie Belldegrun and research chief David Chang have now launched a new biotech with a whopping $300 million in cash financing and a collaboration with Cellectis after bagging the full portfolio of off-the-shelf CAR-T drugs in development at Pfizer.
Belldegrun — who came away with a fortune of more than $600 million from the sale of the biotech to Gilead — tells me he gained swift backing from a broad syndicate to create Allogene Therapeutics. And they’re jumping out of stage left with a deal that gives them control of Pfizer’s CAR-T portfolio, which includes rights to the early-stage UCART19 allied with Paris-backed Cellectis.
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