Bay­er picks up off-the-shelf CAR-T ap­proach from Atara, spot­light­ing a Memo­r­i­al Sloan Ket­ter­ing break­through

Bay­er’s brand new cell & gene ther­a­py strat­e­gy now al­so fea­tures CAR-T.

In a new deal with Atara Bio­ther­a­peu­tics, the Ger­man phar­ma has re­served $610 mil­lion — $60 mil­lion of that up­front — to spend on two cell ther­a­pies di­rect­ed at mesothe­lin. ATA3271, an off-the-shelf ther­a­py, is the main fo­cus but an au­tol­o­gous ver­sion of it is al­so part of the pact.

The goal? To go af­ter high mesothe­lin-ex­press­ing sol­id tu­mors such as ma­lig­nant pleur­al mesothe­lioma and non-small-cell lung can­cer.

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