Roche and Poseida Therapeutics have announced a merger agreement in which Poseida’s shares will be acquired by Roche for a price of $9 per share, and a further $4 per share for the achievement of certain milestones, with a total equity value of $1.5 billion. The deal will enable Roche to establish a new core capability focusing on allogeneic cell therapy, which will include CAR-T programs across a wide range of conditions spanning oncology and autoimmune disease.
Based in San Diego, Poseida Therapeutics focuses on the development of cell and gene therapies. The company’s pipeline includes CAR-T cell therapy candidates for blood cancers, autoimmune disease, and solid tumors, as well as investigational genetic medicines.
Roche will be tapping into Poseida’s genetic engineering technology platforms, which include a site-specific gene editing system, a non-viral DNA delivery system, nanoparticle gene delivery technology and in-house GMP cell therapy manufacturing capabilities. These allow Poseida to design, develop and manufacture allogeneic T stem cell memory cells (TSCM)-rich CAR-T therapies. According to the company, this type of T cells are ideal for CAR-T applications because they are long-lived, multi-potent and self-replication, with potential for improved safety and efficacy over other approaches to CAR-T therapy.
“Poseida has demonstrated the unique ability of its proprietary non-viral technology platform to create allogeneic, TSCM-rich CAR-T therapies with the potential to improve clinical outcomes and expand access to this important class of medicines,” said Kristin Yarema, President and Chief Executive Officer of Poseida Therapeutics. “Most recently, this was highlighted by the compelling interim clinical data for P-BCMA-ALLO1 in patients with multiple myeloma.”
Roche and Poseida had previously entered a partnership in 2022, as part of which Roche had licensed the company’s two lead cell therapy candidates. The lead program, P-BCMA-ALLO1, entered the clinic in 2022 for the treatment of multiple myeloma and the second, P-CD19CD20-ALLO1, followed suit earlier this year for the treatment of B-cell malignancies.
“We have worked closely with Roche through our collaboration focused on hematologic malignancies, and we are excited to join Roche to work as colleagues together across our pipeline and future programs,” said Yarema. “Roche’s global capabilities in late-stage development and commercialization will enable patients worldwide to benefit from the transformative potential of allo CAR-T.”
