Fate and J&J end deal that once promised $3B in mile­stones; biotech cuts staff

Fate Ther­a­peu­tics said that it agreed with John­son & John­son to ter­mi­nate a part­ner­ship they struck in 2020 to de­vel­op can­cer im­munother­a­pies, a deal that could have been worth as much as $3 bil­lion in mile­stone pay­ments.

As a re­sult, Fate plans to cut about half of its staff and will stop de­vel­op­ment of the pro­grams. The San Diego-based com­pa­ny said in a press re­lease that J&J had made a pro­pos­al to keep the col­lab­o­ra­tion go­ing, and that Fate had re­ject­ed it. The com­pa­ny’s shares lost al­most half their val­ue in af­ter-mar­ket trad­ing on Thurs­day.

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