Lyell Immunopharma completes acquisition of ImmPACT Bio

Lyell Immunopharma, Inc. (Nasdaq: LYEL) said on October 31, 2024 that it had completed its acquisition of ImmPACT Bio USA Inc., a privately owned clinical-stage cell therapy company. The South San Francisco company's release says the deal adds IMPT-314, a dual-targeting CD19/CD20 CAR T-cell product candidate, to its pipeline. The release does not give the purchase price or the terms of the consideration.

What the acquisition adds

The release says the deal strengthens Lyell's clinical-stage CAR T pipeline and complements its suite of technologies designed to generate longer-lasting, functional T cells. IMPT-314 is a chimeric antigen receptor T-cell product candidate for hematologic malignancies, including B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Lyell expects it to start pivotal development in 2025 in patients in the third-line setting with B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma who have not yet been exposed to CAR T-cell therapy. The company plans to present initial data from the Phase 1-2 trial in patients treated in the third-line CAR-naive setting at a major medical conference later this year.

The release says Lyell's product candidates are enhanced with technology designed to generate T cells that resist exhaustion, in order to drive durable tumor cytotoxicity. It reports no clinical result for IMPT-314.

The board and the chief executive

Sumant Ramachandra, M.D., Ph.D., MBA, has joined Lyell's board. He has served as chief executive officer of ImmPACT Bio USA since November 2021 and sat on ImmPACT's board from December 2021 to October 2024. Before entering the industry in 2000, he was an intern and resident physician in medical services at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School. He holds a biochemistry degree, a Ph.D. in experimental pathology and an M.D. from Rutgers University, and an M.B.A. from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Before ImmPACT he was chief science, technology and medical officer at Baxter International and president of Baxter Pharmaceuticals. He worked at Pfizer, most recently as senior vice president and head of research and development for Pfizer Essential Health, and was chief scientific officer at Hospira from 2008 to 2015, before Pfizer acquired Hospira in 2015.

Lynn Seely, M.D., Lyell's president and chief executive officer, said "We're excited to welcome ImmPACT to Lyell and look forward to working together to transform the treatment of cancer with next-generation cell therapies that offer patients improved outcomes." She said the company is focused on accelerating development of IMPT-314 for patients with aggressive B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Rick Klausner, M.D., chair of Lyell's board, said Ramachandra's experience will help guide the company as it integrates the two organizations.

Cash and what it must fund

Lyell says its cash balance will fund operations into 2027, through clinical milestones for each pipeline program, including the start of a pivotal trial for IMPT-314 expected in 2025. The company said it had previously disclosed that runway. The release gives no cash balance, and it does not show how much of the runway the acquisition itself consumes or adds.

The release's own list of risks includes Lyell's limited experience in enrolling and conducting clinical trials and its lack of experience in completing them, and the significant uncertainty that its candidates will ever receive regulatory approval. It also names the sufficiency of Lyell's capital resources and its need for additional capital.

The company

Lyell describes itself as a clinical-stage company advancing a pipeline of next-generation CAR T-cell therapies for solid tumors and hematologic malignancies. It is based in South San Francisco with facilities in Seattle and Bothell, Washington.

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