Gilead brings Medicxi’s tiny Gade­ta in­to the cell ther­a­py fold, hunt­ing a way to pick the lock on sol­id tu­mors

The bat­tle­ship Gilead has added a small but po­ten­tial­ly re­mark­able biotech tug boat to its fast-grow­ing cell ther­a­py drug fleet.

The bio­phar­ma pow­er­house’s CAR-T com­pa­ny Kite is al­ly­ing with tiny Gade­ta in the Nether­lands, ink­ing a deal to col­lab­o­rate on its gam­ma delta TCR tech, fund­ing re­search and lin­ing up an op­tion to buy them out if it all works out.

De­tails are scant. Gade­ta was seed­ed by Medicxi out of Lon­don, which al­so joined Bax­al­ta Ven­tures on a slim $8 mil­lion launch round in 2016. Now with a staff in the 20s, Gade­ta is still pre­clin­i­cal, but lin­ing up a shot at a crit­i­cal hu­man study for sol­id tu­mors in 2020. And Gilead/Kite is hop­ing that Gade­ta — spe­cial­iz­ing in the high­ly spe­cif­ic gam­ma delta field — will open up a world of new op­por­tu­ni­ties in on­col­o­gy.

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.

SIGN UP LOG IN BECOME A PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER