Pharmaceutical firm Eli Lilly agreed on Monday to invest $30m in Cell & Gene Therapies as part of a larger agreement with its parent company, Germany-based immunotherapy product developer BioNTech.
Founded in 2008, BioNTech is developing immunotherapies for cancer and other diseases. Cell & Gene Therapies is researching and developing T cell receptor (TCR) and chimeric antigen receptor immunotherapeutics to combat cancer.
The agreement will involve Eli Lilly and BioNTech collaborating on identifying and validating tumour targets and their corresponding TCRs in various types of cancer, in order to help develop treatments.
In addition to the equity investment, BioNTech will also receive $30m from Eli Lilly in the form of a signing fee, and could potentially secure a further $300m in development, regulatory and commercial milestone payments.
Greg Plowman, vice president of Eli Lilly subsidiary Lilly Oncology Research, said: “In the past few years, we’ve seen some amazing breakthroughs in immuno-oncology; however, we believe these are just the tip of the iceberg.
“Lilly’s partnership with BioNTech represents the next wave of cancer immunotherapy and is focused on the identification of functional T cell receptors that can be used to redirect a patient’s natural immune system to fight cancer.”
Prior to the agreement, BioNTech had raised an undisclosed nine-figure amount of funding from the Strüngmann brothers, who founded generic drug producer Hexal, and venture capital firm MIG Fund.