Gilead's Unit Kite, And Appia Bio Join For Stem Cell Therapy Research

(RTTNews) - Biopharmaceutical company Kite, a unit of Gilead Sciences, Inc. (GILD) singularly focused on cell therapy for cancer treatment, and Appia Bio, Inc., an early-stage biotechnology company developing cancer therapies, on Thursday announced a collaboration and license agreement to research and develop Hematopoietic Stem Cells derived therapies for hematological malignancies.

Appia Bio will receive an upfront payment, an equity investment, and and additional earn-out payment of up to $875 million as well as tiered royalties.

Appia Bio will be responsible for preclinical and early clinical research of two HSC-derived CAR-iNKT product candidates engineered with CARs provided by Kite.

Kite and Appia Bio will develop chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-engineered invariant natural killer T (CAR-iNKT) cells using Appia Bio's ACUA (Appia Cells Utilized for Allogeneic) technology platform for allogeneic cell therapy.

Kite will be responsible for the development, manufacturing, and commercialization of the product candidates identified through the collaboration.

The collaboration with Appia Bio, is expected to allow Kite to harness unique biological properties of invariant natural killer T cells to research and develop allogeneic cell therapies for cancer.

The shares of Gilead Sciences, Inc. (GILD) are currently trading at $69.03, down $ 0.21 or 0.31 percent from previous close.