Moderna and Immatics announce strategic multi-platform collaboration to develop innovative oncology therapeutics

12.09.2023 17:26

Moderna and Immatics, a company focused on developing and manufacturing T-cell-based immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer, announced on September 11 a strategic research and development collaboration to jointly develop novel and transformative therapies for cancer patients to advance high medical needs. This broad cross-platform collaboration leverages the two companies' deep scientific expertise and core operational competencies by combining Immatics' TCR platform with Moderna's cutting-edge mRNA technology. The collaboration spans multiple therapeutic modalities, including bispecific molecules, cell therapies and cancer vaccines.

The strategic R&D collaboration between Moderna and Immatics focuses on three core areas

• The use of Moderna's mRNA technology for the in vivo expression of Immatic's next-generation bispecific TCR molecules with extended half-life (TCER®) that target cancer-specific HLA-presenting peptides.
• The discovery and development of novel mRNA-based cancer vaccines by leveraging Moderna's deep knowledge of mRNA technology and selected information from Immatic's extensive tumor and normal tissue datasets from the XPRESIDENT® target discovery platform and bioinformatics and AI XCUBE™ platform.
• The study of Immatic's IMA203 TCR T-cell therapy candidate, directed against the PRAME target, in combination with Moderna's mRNA-based PRAME cancer vaccine candidate. The collaboration will conduct preclinical studies and a Phase 1 clinical trial evaluating the safety and efficacy of the combination, with the aim of further enhancing the T cell responses of IMA203.

“We are very pleased about this strategic collaboration with Immatics, a pioneer in the development of innovative cancer immunotherapies. This partnership provides a great opportunity to combine our mRNA technology with Immatic's TCR platform to potentially diversify and expand current cancer treatment approaches. We believe this collaboration will accelerate the development of novel cancer therapies and bring us one step closer to our goal of providing significant clinical benefit to patients with high unmet medical needs,” said Rose Loughlin, Ph.D., senior vice president for research and Early Development by Moderna.

“We are delighted to be working with Moderna to join forces to advance innovative and transformative cancer therapies. We believe our target and TCR platforms, along with Moderna’s cutting-edge mRNA technology, represent a powerful combination that has the potential to significantly improve patient care,” said Toni Weinschenk, Ph.D., Chief Innovation Officer from Immatics. “The rapid development of our first two TCER® programs into the clinic and additional candidates in our preclinical pipeline underscore our commitment to the development of innovative therapeutics. We are confident that through this collaboration we can develop the optimal delivery of TCER® molecules to maximize clinical benefit for a broad patient population,” commented Carsten Reinhardt, MD, Ph.D., Chief Development Officer of Immatics.

About the collaboration

As part of the agreement, Immatics will receive an upfront payment of $120 million. Immatics will also receive research funding and be eligible for development, approval and commercialization milestone payments that could total over $1.7 billion. Immatics will also be entitled to tiered royalties on global net sales of TCER® products and certain vaccines marketed under the agreement. As part of the agreement, Immatics has the option to enter into a global profit and loss sharing agreement for the most advanced TCER® candidate.

Moderna will lead the clinical development and commercialization of cancer vaccines and TCER® therapeutics resulting from the collaboration. Immatics is responsible for conducting the preclinical and a potential Phase 1 clinical trial evaluating the combination of the IMA203 TCR T-cell therapy candidate with the PRAME mRNA vaccine candidate. The combination is intended to further strengthen the IMA203 T cell response. Each party will retain full ownership rights to its respective PRAME drug candidate. The parties will fund the clinical trial on a cost-sharing basis.

As part of the collaboration, the preclinical activities carried out by Immatics will be led by the Immatics Discovery Unit. This is a restructured internal department of Immatics that integrates its technology platforms into an interdisciplinary team focused on all preclinical pipeline and collaboration programs in early preclinical development.

The collaboration is subject to customary antitrust approval in the United States.