Collectis shares surge on Pfizer deal

Cellectis shares were up 76 per cent, the most ever, after Pfizer Inc bought rights to the French company's experimental CAR-T projects, as it followed Novartis AG into a new area of cancer immune therapy.

Collectis would get $80 million upfront from Pfizer and  additionally, milestone payments of as much as $185 million for each product that hit certain development and commercial targets, according to a statement by the drugmaker today.

The New York-based Pfizer also agreed to the acquisition of around 10 per cent of the French biotechnology company's capital through newly issued shares at €9.25 apiece, 49 per cent above the closing price yesterday.

Cellectis was up the most after the stock started trading in 2007, rising to €10.94 in Paris, as the company's market value stood at  €274 million.

According to commentators the deal marks a challenge from Pfizer to Switzerland's Novartis, the world's two biggest drugmakers. The Swiss company was already testing CAR-T therapy, which involved taking T cells from blood, engineering them to identify proteins on cancer cells, then putting them into the body to seek and destroy a tumor.

According to Pfizer, technology from Cellectis would simplify the delicate process of engineering those cells.

The Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-cell (CAR-T) immunotherapies provide a proprietary, allogeneic approach (utilising engineered T-cells from a single donor for use in multiple patients) to developing CAR-T therapies that was distinct from other autologous approaches (engineering a patient's own T-cells to target tumor cells).

The terms of the agreement give Pfizer exclusive rights to pursue development and commercialisation of CAR-T therapies, in the field of oncology, directed at a total of 15 targets selected by Pfizer.

Both companies would jointly undertake pre-clinical research and Pfizer would be responsible for the development and potential commercialisation of any CAR-T therapies for the Pfizer-selected targets.

Additionally, the agreement provided for a total of 12 targets selected by Cellectis.

Both companies will work together on preclinical research on four Cellectis-selected targets with Cellectis working independently on eight additional targets.

Cellectis would be responsible for clinical development and commercialisation of CAR-T therapeutics for the Cellectis-selected targets. Pfizer would have right of first refusal to the four Cellectis-selected targets.