Takeda wanted to create something new in the cell therapy world by combining the technology with T cell engagers. A series of acquisitions in 2021 started the process.
Takeda’s decision to end work in cell therapy blows a hole in the Japanese pharma’s pipeline and marks a shift in a deliberate strategy to invest in the modality.
Takeda’s interest in cell therapy goes back to at least May 2017, when it contributed to GammaDelta Therapeutics’ $100 million venture round. Takeda would go on to acquire GammaDelta for an undisclosed sum via its corporate venture capital arm Takeda Ventures. And in early 2021, Takeda started stocking up on cell therapy–related assets, with four deals struck in less than a year.
Most recently, the company struck a licensing deal with Alloy Therapeutics to help advance its stem cell–derived CAR T and CAR natural killer cell platforms. The other three cell therapy–related deals were acquisitions. In fact, of Takeda’s five most recent purchases, three were related to its cell therapy mission.
While financial details were not disclosed for two of them—Adaptate Biotherapeutics and GammaDelta—in March 2021 Takeda spent $525 million to buy Maverick Therapeutics, calling the biotech “a leader in the race to apply T cell therapy to solid tumor cancers.”
Takeda wanted to create something new in the cell therapy world by combining the technology with T cell engagers, targeted immunotherapies that harness a patients’ own T cells to fight cancer.
The Maverick deal gave Takeda the COBRA platform, meant to develop safer T cell engagers. The companies had worked together for several years, with Takeda holding the right to acquire Maverick.
Via Adaptate, Takeda picked up an antibody-based gamma-delta T cell engager platform and a clutch of preclinical and discovery programs in a January 2022 deal. Takeda planned to combine that platform with the cell therapy porfolio and platforms it picked up with its acquisition of GammaDelta in October 2021, using the pharma’s own R&D organization to develop new therapies for cancer. Adaptate had spun out of GammaDelta in 2019, so Takeda’s buy meant the band coming back together under one wing.
Earlier this year, however, Takeda terminated the Maverick assets, resulting in a $95 million impairment charge reported during full-year earnings in May. Then last week, the company announced it was cutting its cell therapy programs altogether. By abandoning the work, Takeda has taken an approximately $384.6 million charge.
The company said it will now focus on small molecules, biologics and antibody-drug conjugates.
