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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