Pfizer invests $25 million in Caribou Biosciences

The pharma giant purchased 4,690,431 of Caribou common shares at a price of $5.33 per share, pursuant to the terms of a securities purchase agreement dated June 29, 2023.

In conjunction with the funding, Dr. Sriram Krishnaswami has joined Caribou’s Scientific Advisory Board.

Caribou will use the proceeds of this investment to advance CB-011, an immune cloaked allogeneic CAR-T cell therapy currently being evaluated in the CaMMouflage phase 1 clinical trial in patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma (r/r MM).

The company will also maintain full ownership and control of its pipeline of allogeneic CAR-T and CAR-NK cell therapies.

Rachel Haurwitz, CEO and president at Caribou, said: “We believe Pfizer’s investment in Caribou highlights the potential of our clinical programs and we are excited to establish this partnership with one of the world’s premier biopharmaceutical companies.”

“We are actively advancing our allogeneic CAR-T cell therapy pipeline and look forward to providing updates from all of our programs over the next six months, including 6-month dose escalation data from our ANTLER Phase 1 clinical trial for CB-010, dose escalation updates on our CaMMouflage phase 1 clinical trial for CB-011, and submission of an investigational new drug application for CB-012.”

Dr. Krishnaswami added: “We are encouraged by Caribou’s chRDNA genome-editing technology and the potential of allogeneic cell therapies as a promising off-the-shelf approach to cancer treatment.”

“Pfizer has a long history of supporting early, innovative science in the biotech ecosystem, and we look forward to supporting Caribou as they continue to advance their ANTLER Phase 1 trial for CB-010, as well as their clinical program for CB-011, an allogeneic anti-BCMA cell therapy for multiple myeloma.”