Adaptimmune (ADAP) Down on End of Collaboration With Roche

GSK RHHBY PSTX

Adaptimmune Therapeutics plc announced that its strategic collaboration with Roche’s (RHHBY - Free Report) Genentech has been terminated. Shares of ADAP were down 10% on the news.

Both companies collaborated in 2021 to develop and commercialize allogeneic cell therapies to treat multiple oncology indications.

The collaboration had two components — the development of allogeneic T-cell therapies for up to five shared cancer targets and the development of personalized allogeneic T-cell therapies.

ADAP was responsible for developing clinical candidates using its induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) derived allogeneic platform to produce T-cells (iT cells). Roche was responsible for the input TCRs and subsequent clinical development and commercialization.

Adaptimmune received an upfront payment of $150 million and was entitled to additional payments of $150 million over five years, along with milestone payments exceeding $3 billion in aggregate value.

The loss of funds from Roche is a setback for ADAP and its investors were clearly disappointed.

Shares of Adaptimmune have risen 46.3% year to date against the industry’s decline of 7.9%.

Nevertheless, management believes in the long-term potential of its iPSC-based allogeneic platform and remains focused on launching the first product in its sarcoma franchise, afami-cel, pending approval. 

Adaptimmune is preparing to launch the first product in its sarcoma franchise, afami-cel, for the treatment of advanced synovial sarcoma, pending review and approval from the FDA. The regulatory body has set a target action date of Aug 4, 2024.

Per the company, afami-cel would be the first engineered T-cell therapy (for treating solid tumors) to receive commercial approval in the United States.

Adaptimmune's second product in its sarcoma franchise, lete-cel, is being investigated in the IGNYTE-ESO study (NCT03967223).

Lete-cel, an engineered TCR T-cell therapy targeting the solid tumor antigen NY-ESO-1, was originally developed by Adaptimmune, and further developed under a collaboration and license agreement with GSK plc (GSK - Free Report) .

In 2023, Adaptimmune and GSK agreed on terms regarding the return of the NY-ESO program back to the former.

Meanwhile, Roche also has a collaboration agreement with a clinical-stage cell and gene therapy company Poseida Therapeutics, Inc. (PSTX - Free Report) .

Poseida continues to develop allogeneic CAR-T therapies targeting hematological malignancies in partnership with Roche. Poseida has plans to continue the development of P-BCMA-ALLO1 in 2024, in partnership with Roche, for the treatment of relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma.

Adaptimmune currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

 

Research Chief Names "Single Best Pick to Double"

From thousands of stocks, 5 Zacks experts each have chosen their favorite to skyrocket +100% or more in months to come. From those 5, Director of Research Sheraz Mian hand-picks one to have the most explosive upside of all.

This company targets millennial and Gen Z audiences, generating nearly $1 billion in revenue last quarter alone. A recent pullback makes now an ideal time to jump aboard. Of course, all our elite picks aren’t winners but this one could far surpass earlier Zacks’ Stocks Set to Double like Nano-X Imaging which shot up +129.6% in little more than 9 months.

Free: See Our Top Stock And 4 Runners Up