Lyell Immunopharma to Acquire ImmPACT Bio to Strengthen Next-Gen CAR-T Pipeline
Lyell Immunopharma
Cell Therapy New Drug Developer
ImmPACT Bio
T Cell Therapy Developer
Recently, Lyell Immunopharma (hereinafter referred to as "Lyell"), a cell therapy company, announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire ImmPACT Bio (hereinafter referred to as "ImmPACT"). Founded in 2017, ImmPACT Bio is a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on developing CAR-T cell therapies based on logic-gated mechanisms.
This acquisition aims to strengthen Lyell’s next-generation CAR-T cell therapy clinical pipeline, particularly by obtaining IMPT-314, a dual-targeting CD19/CD20 CAR-T cell product candidate. IMPT-314 is mainly used for treating hematologic malignancies. The product is designed to enhance its anti-tumor effects through a dual-targeting CAR-T design and improve the persistence of CAR-T cells by enriching naive T cells and central memory T cells during the manufacturing process.
Diagram of the CAR structure and tumor cell killing mechanism of CD19/CD20 CAR-T cells (Source:ImmPACTOfficial Website of the Company
Previously, ImmPACT obtained the license for IMPT-314 from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and significant progress has been made in its multicenter IMPT-314 Phase I/II clinical trial. Preliminary clinical data is expected to be released later this year, with plans to initiate the pivotal trial for IMPT-314 in 2025.
ImmPACTCompany's R&D Product Pipeline(Source of the image:ImmPACTCompany Official Website）
The terms of the acquisition include $30 million in cash and 37.5 million shares of Lyell Immunopharma, Inc. common stock as an upfront payment. Shareholders of ImmPACT Bio USA Inc. are also eligible to receive additional contingent compensation: if one or more significant milestone(s) are achieved during clinical research or product development, they will be entitled to receive an additional 12.5 million shares of Lyell Immunopharma, Inc. common stock. Moreover, shareholders of ImmPACT Bio USA Inc. will also be entitled to receive a certain percentage of royalties on net sales from future U.S. sales of the dual-targeted CD19/20 CAR-T cell therapy product.
Regarding this acquisition, Lyell has also reassessed its pipeline priorities, focusing resources on its most differentiated CAR-T cell clinical programs, including LYL119 and the soon-to-be-acquired IMPT-314. LYL119 incorporates enhanced anti-exhaustion technologies such as c-Jun overexpression, NR4A3 knockout, Epi-R, and Stim-R, which are expected to achieve better efficacy at lower cell doses while maintaining acceptable safety. In preclinical in vivo validation models of non-small cell lung cancer, LYL119 demonstrated robust anti-tumor effects at a cell dose ten times lower than LYL797, with a more gradual expansion to peak levels. It also showed more sustained cytotoxicity in repeated in vitro tumor cell killing assays.
LYL119 Project Progress (Source: Lyell Immunopharma's official website)
In addition, Lyell has decided to halt the development of LYL797, LYL845, and earlier TIL projects to focus resources on advancing the next generation of cell therapies with the highest potential to deliver significant and durable clinical benefits to patients.
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