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Intellia (NTLA) Inks Deal With Kyverna for Autoimmune Diseases

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Intellia Therapeutics, Inc. (NTLA - Free Report) announced that it has entered into a licensing and collaboration agreement with California-based privately held company, Kyverna Therapeutics, Inc., for developing an allogeneic CD19 chimeric antigen receptor (“CAR”) T-cell therapy for the treatment of a variety of B-cell-mediated autoimmune diseases.

Under the terms of the agreement, Kyverna has the rights to use Intellia’s proprietary ex vivo CRISPR/Cas9-based allogeneic platform for developing KYV-201. In return, Intellia acquired an equity stake in Kyverna and also made an additional investment in the latter.

Kyverna will be solely responsible for the preclinical and clinical development for KYV-201, a next-generation CD19 CAR T-cell investigational candidate being developed for addressing select autoimmune diseases. Intellia, on the other hand, will be entitled to receive certain development and commercial milestone payments and low-to-mid-single-digit royalties on net sales upon potential approval.

Per the press release, if Intellia opts to co-develop and co-commercialize KYV-201, it will have to pay an opt-in fee and share development costs and revenues from KYV-201 sales equally in the United States. Kyverna will retain all rights to KYV-201 in ex-U.S. markets, while Intellia will receive royalties on net sales of the product from said markets.

Shares of Intellia have rallied 33.3% in the past year against the industry’s decline of 26.9%.

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Intellia remains focused on developing curative therapeutics using the CRISPR/Cas9 technology. The company is evaluating its lead in-vivo genome-editing candidate, NTLA-2001, in a phase I study for treating transthyretin amyloidosis with polyneuropathy. NTLA-2001 is part of a co-development and co-promotion agreement with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (REGN - Free Report) .

While Intellia is the lead party for NTLA-2001, Regeneron will share 25% of the development costs and commercial profits. Both Intellia and Regeneron are also developing therapies for hemophilia A and hemophilia B.

Intellia had also initiated a phase I/II study evaluating NTLA-2002 for the treatment of hereditary angioedema (“HAE”) in December 2021. NTLA-2002 aims to prevent HAE attacks by suppressing the plasma kallikrein activity.

NTLA-5001 is the company’s first wholly-owned ex-vivo genome editing candidate for the treatment of cancer. Intellia plans to start clinical studies for NTLA-5001 in acute myeloid leukemia shortly.

Zacks Rank & Stocks to Consider

Intellia currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Some better-ranked stocks in the biotech sector include Intercept Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and vTv Therapeutics Inc. (VTVT - Free Report) , both carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Intercept Pharmaceuticals’ loss per share estimates have narrowed 2.1% for 2022, over the past 60 days.

Earnings of Intercept Pharmaceuticals have surpassed estimates in three of the trailing four quartersand missed the same on the other occasion.

vTv Therapeutics’ loss per share estimates have narrowed 2.9% for 2022, over the past 60 days.

vTv Therapeutics’ earnings have surpassed estimates in three of the trailing four quarters and missed the same on the other occasion.


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