Company Name: Cynata Therapeutics
Announcement Date: 27/05/2016
Announcement Category: Contract/Partnership
Announcement Content:
Option agreement signed with apceth. Earlier today, Cynata announced that it had signed an initial option license agreement with the privately-held German firm apceth GmbH, which involves a global agreement for apceth to develop and commercialize Cynata’s proprietary CymerusTM technology platform for the production of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) in conjunction with apceth’s proprietary genetic modification technology. The agreement involved an immediate upfront cash payment, the magnitude of which was undisclosed, and a definitive license is subject to the completion of an initial collaboration project that is slated to conclude later this year. Under the terms of the license, Cynata and apceth are to work together in developing the CymerusTM technology, and apceth is to provide Cynata with additional payments contingent upon the achievement of subsequent milestones. The total amount of these contingent payments could exceed A$40M. In addition, Cynata could receive royalties on net sales of products developed using its manufacturing platform in conjunction with the apceth technology. In the wake of the signing of this agreement, which we note involves the potential payment of future milestones that in aggregate comfortably exceed Cynata’s current market cap and enterprise value, we reiterate our Buy rating and 12-month price target of A$1.00 per share on Cynata.
Intriguing applicability within oncology. We note that apceth, although a relatively new firm, having been founded as a startup in 2007, is already in clinical development with a lead product candidate, MSC_apceth_101, based on autologously- derived mesenchymal stromal cells. The Phase 1/2 trial is a single-arm, prospective study involving patients with advanced recurrent or metastatic gastrointestinal or hepatopancreatobiliary adenocarcinoma. MSC_apceth_101 is derived from stem cells obtained using the patients’ own bone marrow and is designed to specifically deliver a “suicide gene” construct into tumor stroma, thereby inhibiting tumor growth and metastasis formation. In our view, the desire of apceth to collaborate with Cynata underscores apceth’s understanding of the need to develop an allogeneic (i.e., “off the shelf”) solution to production of the stem cells needed to act as the delivery vehicles for therapy, rather than simply retain a need for autologous production. We note that, while Cynata has granted an option to apceth for a worldwide license to the CymerusTM platform, this would be specific to oncology-related applications and furthermore would be restricted only to solutions involving genetically modified MSCs, thus providing adequate freedom, in our view, for Cynata to pursue other partnership agreements with different companies.
Announcement URL: http://cynata.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/f9e6cca7-3a05-4e4b-a664-e48bbc5e06fb-2.pdf
About Cynata Therapeutics:
Cynata Therapeutics Limited is an Australian stem cell and regenerative medicine company that is developing a therapeutic stem cell platform technology, Cymerus™, using discoveries made at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UWM). UWM is a world-renowned leader in stem cell research, in particular for the work by Professor James Thomson's group, which included the first successful isolation of human embryonic stem cells in 1998, and the derivation of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) from human adult cells in 2007. Professor Igor Slukvin, a co-founder of Cynata, was also a member of the team that conducted UWM's pioneering iPSC research.
Cynata's Cymerus™ platform stem cell technology is based upon extremely important and versatile stem cells known as mesenchymoangioblasts (MCAs). MCAs are a precursor of mesenchymal stem (or stromal) cells (MSCs) which are at the forefront of a new generation of treatments being investigated for such devastating diseases as osteoarthritis, Crohn’s disease and heart disease. Cynata’s proprietary technology utilizes iPSCs originating from an adult donor as the starting material for generating MCAs and in turn for manufacturing the MSC therapeutic product.
Go to Company Profile for: Cynata Therapeutics
Announcement Contact: [email protected]
