Editas Medicine, Inc. (EDIT) announced an amended collaboration with Celgene Corporation (CELG) under which the parties may research, develop, and commercialize autologous and allogeneic alpha-beta T cell medicines for the treatment of cancer and autoimmune diseases. Under the terms of the amended agreement, Editas Medicine will receive a payment of $70M. Under the terms of the amended agreement, Editas Medicine may develop genome editing tools and Celgene will have rights to opt-in to such genome editing tools for development of gene edited alpha-beta T cell therapies. For each new experimental medicine that Celgene develops and commercializes using opted-into genome editing tools, Celgene will pay Editas Medicine potential future milestone and royalty payments. Editas Medicine and Juno Therapeutics originally entered into a strategic research collaboration in 2015 focused on creating chimeric antigen receptor T and high-affinity T cell receptor cell therapies to treat cancer. The exclusive research period under the original collaboration was set to expire in 2020. This newly amended agreement replaces the original agreement and allows Editas to develop non-alpha-beta T cell therapies, while expanding Celgene's access to gene-edited alpha-beta T cells beyond oncology.
