Roche buys Poseida for $1.5B, betting on allogeneic CAR-Ts

Roche Holdings will acquire San Diego-based Poseida Therapeutics in a deal worth approximately $1.5 billion, establishing a new core capability for Roche in allogeneic cell therapy.

Per the deal, Roche will acquire all of Poseida's outstanding shares for a price of $9.00 per share in cash at closing, plus a further $4.00 per share in cash payable upon achievement of specified milestones.

The deal gives Roche access to CAR-T programs for solid tumors and autoimmune diseases, along with Poseida's genetic engineering platform and related preclinical medicines. Many of the CAR-T programs were already covered by an existing deal between Poseida and Roche inked in 2022 when the two signed a broad strategic collaboration and license agreement focused on developing allogeneic CAR-T therapies directed to hematologic malignancies. Roche had handed Poseida $110 million upfront, with the possibility of up to $6 billion in research, development, launch, and net sales milestones on the table.

Poseida's lead program, P-BCMA-ALLO1, is an allogeneic CAR-T therapy targeting B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA). P-BCMA-ALLO1 has received Regenerative Medicine Advanced Therapy designation for relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma after three or more prior lines of therapies, and FDA Orphan Drug Designation for multiple myeloma. Poseida recently revealed compelling results from the optimized lymphodepletion arms of the ongoing phase 1 trial, with P-BCMA-ALLO1 demonstrating deep responses and a high response rate in patients with heavily pre-treated relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma.

Poseida has pioneered a proprietary technology platform that includes a full set of non-viral capabilities to design, develop and manufacture allogeneic, T stem cell memory cells (TSCM)-rich CAR-T therapies. Because TSCM cells are long-lived, multi-potent and self-replicating, they offer the potential for CAR-T therapies with improved safety and efficacy profiles.