Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, a Tarrytown, New York-based pharmaceutical company, and Adicet Bio, a Menlo Park, California-based preclinical biotechnology company, have formed a collaboration and licensing agreement to develop immune cell therapeutics. The companies plan to engineer immune cells with fully human chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) and T-cell receptors (TCRs) directed to disease-specific cell surface antigens in order to enable the engagement and killing of tumor cells. The collaboration is intended to generate multiple clinical product candidates for various hematological and solid tumor cancers.

Under the agreement, Regeneron and Adicet will collaborate to identify and validate appropriate targets and work together to develop a pipeline of engineered immune cell therapeutics for the selected targets. Adicet will receive a $25 million upfront payment as well as research funding over the course of a five-year research term. Regeneron has the option to obtain development and commercial rights for a certain number of the product candidates, and Adicet has an option to participate in the development and commercialization on these potential products or is entitled to royalty payments by Regeneron. Immune cell therapy product candidates developed and commercialized by Adicet under the agreement will be subject to payment of royalties to Regeneron. Regeneron will have the right to leverage targeting molecules it developed under the collaboration in its other monoclonal and bispecific antibody programs, including those that are part of the Sanofi immuno-oncology collaboration.

Source: Regeneron Pharmaceuticals