Astel­las em­pow­ers new­ly en­er­gized Cy­tomX with $80M up­front to get pre­clin­i­cal bis­pe­cif­ic work go­ing

In the lat­est up­swing on the Cy­tomX roller coast­er ride, Astel­las is stok­ing the wan­ing flames of its plat­form tech with $80 mil­lion up­front and a new part­ner­ship.

Specif­i­cal­ly, the Japan­ese phar­ma is in­ter­est­ed in ap­ply­ing the Pro­body tech on T cell en­gag­ing bis­pe­cif­ic can­cer ther­a­pies — a path that Am­gen has al­so trav­eled down. Astel­las is fund­ing re­search and dis­cov­ery up to clin­i­cal can­di­date se­lec­tion, at which point it will take over. With $1.6 bil­lion in mile­stones on the ta­ble for a num­ber of un­named tar­gets, Cy­tomX has the op­tion to co-fund part of the clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment for sev­er­al pro­grams in ex­change for prof­it-share or co-com­mer­cial­iza­tion.

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