Re­silience is hav­ing a fun week. Fresh off a $625 mil­lion Se­ries D and the launch of a joint ven­ture with MD An­der­son, the bio­man­u­fac­tur­er Re­silience has inked an­oth­er part­ner­ship with an in­flu­en­tial can­cer cen­ter.

Sean Park­er

Bil­lion­aire Nap­ster founder Sean Park­er’s Park­er In­sti­tute for Can­cer Im­munother­a­py (PI­CI) and Re­silience on Wednes­day cracked open a five-year strate­gic al­liance to de­vel­op and man­u­fac­ture can­cer ther­a­pies gen­er­at­ed from PI­CI’s net­work of im­munother­a­py re­search cen­ters.

The deal aims for PI­CI and Re­silience to bring nov­el cell and gene ther­a­pies to mar­ket through the cre­ation and in­cu­ba­tion of new com­pa­nies with a com­mit­ment of up to $50 mil­lion in fund­ing. The deal will lever­age tech­nolo­gies from across the PI­CI Net­work and have di­rect ac­cess to Re­silience’s bio­man­u­fac­tur­ing ca­pac­i­ty and ca­pa­bil­i­ties.

“This strate­gic al­liance is rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the trans­for­ma­tive growth un­der­way at PI­CI as we take our vi­sion to the next lev­el with new com­pa­ny in­vest­ments and in­cu­ba­tion,” Park­er said in a state­ment.

The agree­ment will see Re­silience al­so col­lab­o­rat­ing with PI­CI in­ves­ti­ga­tors on chal­lenges re­lat­ed to bio­man­u­fac­tur­ing and nov­el treat­ment modal­i­ties. Re­silience will al­so serve as PI­CI’s first val­ued man­u­fac­tur­ing part­ner for com­plex modal­i­ties. It will al­so work with PI­CI-af­fil­i­at­ed part­ners.

Re­silience and PI­CI will es­tab­lish a joint steer­ing com­mit­tee to ap­prove in­vest­ments and new com­pa­ny op­por­tu­ni­ties, mon­i­tor and track the progress of al­liance port­fo­lio com­pa­nies, and iden­ti­fy chal­lenge fo­cus ar­eas, among oth­er du­ties.

This is not PI­CI’s first for­ay in­to forg­ing deals as it has pre­vi­ous­ly worked with biotechs like Xyphos Bio­sciences to de­vel­op a CAR-T ther­a­py. The or­ga­ni­za­tion has a slew of part­ner­ships and deals with com­pa­nies, uni­ver­si­ties and re­search or­ga­ni­za­tions since its found­ing in 2016.

Re­silience in the mean­time is rid­ing high on its new round of in­vest­ment to fur­ther its mis­sion of be­com­ing the “Fox­conn” of biotech, which was in­tend­ed to be used to build out more deals, po­ten­tial ac­qui­si­tions and R&D ex­pan­sion.

Dupixent, the blockbuster anti-inflammatory drug from Sanofi and Regeneron, has cleared a high-stakes Phase III study in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, the companies announced Thursday morning.

If they hold up in a second, identical trial, the data pave the way for Dupixent to become the first biologic to treat patients whose COPD remains uncontrolled despite being on maximal standard-of-care inhaled therapy — the patient population studied in the pivotal program. The companies had spotlighted this as a key readout as they look to expand the Dupixent franchise and explore its full potential.

Incyte touted an accelerated approval for its PD-1 retifanlimab in a rare skin cancer on Wednesday, roughly a year and a half after the drug suffered a rejection in squamous cell carcinoma of the anal canal (SCAC).

Retifanlimab, marketed as Zynyz, was approved for metastatic or recurrent locally advanced Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC), a fast-growing skin cancer typically characterized by a single, painless nodule. It’s roughly 40 times rarer than melanoma, according to the nonprofit Skin Cancer Foundation — but incidence is growing, particularly among older adults, Incyte said in its announcement.