Boehringer Ingelheim has said it will be acquiring bacterial cancer therapy specialist T3 Pharmaceuticals in a deal worth over $500m, marking a significant boost to its immuno-oncology portfolio.

Boehringer said it is seeking to “significantly increase” the current 15 to 20% remission rate in cancer patients by utilising complementary immuno-oncology platforms such as T-cell engagers, oncolytic viruses and cancer vaccines.

T3, founded in 2015 as a spinout from the University of Basel in Switzerland, has developed a proprietary therapy platform that uses live bacteria to deliver immune-modulating proteins directly to cancer cells and tumour micro-environments while sparing healthy tissues.

The bacteria can be loaded with multiple immune-modulatory proteins of choice, allowing the design of immuno-oncology combination therapies in one single agent.

Michel Pairet, member of the board of managing directors at Boehringer with responsibility for the Innovation Unit, said: "The acquisition of T3 Pharma will significantly expand our immuno-oncology pipeline portfolio and is synergistic with many of our existing research and development programmes.

“This will bring us closer to achieving our vision of driving a paradigm shift in cancer care treatments.”

Simon Ittig, T3 Pharma’s chief executive officer, added that the company was “very excited to continue and accelerate the successful development of [its] bacterial delivery platform" as part of Boehringer.

"Being integrated with our partners at Boehringer will enable us to realise the full potential of our platform to fight solid cancers,” Ittig said.

Boehringer has made a series of oncology-focused deals this year, including an exclusive research collaboration and worldwide licensing agreement with Covant Therapeutics to develop new cancer immunotherapies.

The partnership, which was announced in March, centres around developing a small-molecule inhibitor of RNA editing enzyme ADAR1 that could be used in combination with other immunotherapies to increase their efficacy.

Boehringer also announced a strategic collaboration and licensing agreement with 3T Biosciences at the beginning of the year to discover and develop next-generation cancer therapies.

That collaboration will see Boehringer input its patient-derived T-cell receptor data into 3T’s discovery platform, 3T TRACE, with the aim of identifying novel antigen targets for cancer immunotherapies.

https://www.pmlive.com/pharma_news/boehringer_ingelheim_to_acquire_t3_pharmaceuticals_in_deal_worth_over_$500m_1504146