Jan. 13 Quick Takes: Takeda, KSQ enter immunotherapy deal; plus Taysha, Cardea, Esperion-Serometrix, Paion-La Jolla and more
KSQ Therapeutics Inc. granted Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. (Tokyo:4502; NYSE:TAK) exclusive, global rights to develop, manufacture and commercialize cell and non-cell therapies that modulate targets identified with KSQ's CRISPRomics platform. The deal includes up to four T cell targets, two of which KSQ already validated, as well as NK cell targets that have yet to be identified. The Japanese pharma will lead clinical development to explore multiple modalities and fund all development and commercialization activities.
The biotech is eligible for $100 million in upfront and preclinical milestone payments and option, development and commercialization milestone payments that could exceed $400 million per program, plus tiered royalties. KSQ also has an option for profit sharing in the U.S. on one of the two already validated targets while retaining ex-U.S. royalties for that product. ...