Gilead’s Kite and Refuge Biotechnologies announced this week that they would be entering an exclusive, worldwide license agreement to develop blood cancer treatments.
Under the agreement, Kite will have rights to California-based Refuge’s gene expression platform, which uses an expression modulation strategy to either activate or repress target genes. The platform has shown potential to improve the efficacy and safety of first-generation CAR-T cell therapies in the company’s early pre-clinical data.
The two are hoping to join forces and develop treatments that will induce long-term remissions for more patients.
Kite will have licensing rights over Refuge’s library of synthetic gene expression program for blood cancer indications, and Refuge will retain all rights to its solid tumor portfolio.
