Sanofi has agreed to acquire Kiadis Pharma, an Amsterdam-based clinical-stage company developing therapeutics based on natural killer (NK) cells, for EUR 308 million ($358 million).

Kiadis’ proprietary platform is based on allogeneic or ‘off-the-shelf’ NK cells from a healthy donor. NK cells seek and identify malignant cancer cells and have broad application across various tumor types.

Kiadis’ pipeline includes NK cell-based medicines for treating patients undergoing hematopoietic stem-cell transplant as well as for treating liquid and solid tumors and infectious diseases. Kiadis’ NK cell-based medicines will be developed alone and in combination with Sanofi’s existing platforms.

Sanofi’s pending acquisition of Kiadis follows a collaboration formed by the companies earlier this year. In July 2020, Sanofi and Kiadis entered into an exclusive license agreement, in a deal worth up to EUR 875 ($996 million), for developing select Kiadis’ NK programs. That deal centered on Kiadis’ K-NK004 program, which is a CD38 knockout K-NK therapeutic for use in combination with anti-CD38 monoclonal antibodies, including Scarlisa (satuximab-irfc), Sanofi’s recently approved drug for treating multiple myeloma.

Source: Sanofi and Kiadis Pharma