Sanofi has announced a $358 million deal to buy Amsterdam-based Kiadis, giving Sanofi full ownership of Kiadis' natural killer (NK) cell platform that it's already using to enhance its multiple myeloma drug, Sarclisa.
Founded in 1997, Kiadis develops innovative cell-based medicines for patients with life-threatening diseases. The biopharma's proprietary platform is based on allogeneic or ‘off-the-shelf' NK-cells from a healthy donor. NK-cells seek and identify malignant cancer cells and have broad application across various tumor types. The platform has the potential to make products rapidly and economically available for a broad patient population across a wide range of indications.
With the acquisition, Sanofi’s research, development, manufacturing and commercial expertise will be leveraged to advance Kiadis’ pipeline, which includes NK-cell-based medicines for the treatment of patients undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplant, liquid and solid tumors, as well as infectious disease.
In July 2020, Sanofi licensed Kiadis’ pre-clinical K-NK004 program for multiple myeloma. The combination of Kiadis' program with Sanofi's anti-CD38 antibody Sarclisa enables optimal tumor cell killing, and offers a potential first-in-class treatment for patients with multiple myeloma.
Kiadis and Sanofi anticipate that the deal will close in the first half of 2021.
Read the press release