Novartis signs deal to bring CAR T therapy to China
Novartis has teamed up with a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical firm in efforts to bring the Swiss company’s proprietary cancer treatment to patients in China.
US-based Cellular Biomedicine Group announced its strategic licensing and collaboration agreement with Novartis on Thursday, September 27.
Novartis’s Kymriah (tisagenlecleucel), which was developed in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania, is a one-time treatment that uses a patient’s own T cells to fight cancer.
In May, Kymriah became the first chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR T) therapy ever to be approved by the US Food and Drug Administration.
It was approved by the European Commission in August and, last month, the UK’s National Health Service announced that children and young people in England will have access to Novartis’s “groundbreaking” cancer treatment.
The deal announced last week is intended to foster the manufacture and supply of Novartis’s proprietary cancer treatment in China.
Tony Liu, CEO at Cellular, explained: “This collaboration with Novartis reflects our shared commitment to bringing the first marketed CAR T cell therapy Kymriah—a transformative treatment option currently approved in the US, EU and Canada for two difficult-to-treat cancers—to China, where the number of patients in need remains the highest in the world.”
Under the terms of the agreement, Cellular will lead the manufacturing of the treatment and Novartis will oversee the distribution, regulatory, and commercialisation efforts in China.
Novartis will receive “certain” royalty-free IP rights, worldwide, relating to some of Cellular’s CAR T technology. Novartis will also be the exclusive owner of the marketing licence covering Kymriah.
As part of the agreement, Novartis will pay Cellular $40 million, and the biopharmaceutical firm will also receive an escalating percentage payment based on net product sales.
Pascal Touchon, senior vice president and global head, cell and gene, at Novartis Oncology, said: “We are proud to collaborate with Cellular in China to expand our Kymriah manufacturing capabilities and the potential to facilitate safe and seamless delivery of this innovative, one-time treatment to patients in need.”
Did you enjoy reading this story? Sign up to our free daily newsletters and get stories sent like this straight to your inbox.
