AstraZeneca announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire EsoBiotec, a biotechnology company pioneering in vivo cell therapies with promising early clinical activity. The EsoBiotec Engineered NanoBody Lentiviral (ENaBL) platform enables the immune system to attack cancers and could offer many more patients access to transformative cell therapy treatments delivered in minutes rather than the current process, which takes weeks.
ENaBL utilizes highly targeted lentiviruses to deliver genetic instructions to specific immune cells like T cells, which program them to recognize and destroy tumor cells for cancer treatment or autoreactive cells for potential use in immune-mediated diseases. This approach enables cell therapies to be administered through a simple IV injection without the need for immune cell depletion.
Traditional cell therapies require cells to be removed from a patient, genetically modified outside the body, and then readministered to the patient as a medicine after immune cell depletion, typically taking weeks. By engineering immune cells directly within the patient’s body, the EsoBiotec in vivo approach can potentially address many of the barriers associated with traditional cell therapies, reducing complexities and manufacturing timelines, increasing access for patients.
AstraZeneca will buy all outstanding equity of EsoBiotec for up to $1 billion on a cash and debt-free basis. This will include an initial payment of $425 million on deal closing and up to $575 million in contingent consideration based on development and regulatory milestones.
The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of 2025, subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory clearances. The deal does not impact AstraZeneca’s financial guidance for 2025.
EsoBiotec will become a wholly owned subsidiary of AstraZeneca, with operations in Belgium.
KEY QUOTES:
“We are excited about the acquisition of EsoBiotec and the opportunity to rapidly advance their promising in vivo platform. We believe it has the potential to transform cell therapy and will enable us to scale these innovative treatments so that many more patients around the world can access them. EsoBiotec will accelerate and expand the impact of our recent investments and marks a major step forward in realising our ambition to harness the full potential of cell therapy.”
- Susan Galbraith, Executive Vice President, Oncology Haematology R&D, AstraZeneca
“We look forward to working with AstraZeneca, a global leader in drug development, to advance our shared goal of bringing transformative cost-effective cell therapies to more patients globally. By combining our expertise and resources, we can accelerate the development of our in vivo platform which has a novel delivery technology we believe will have broad therapeutic applicability.”
- Jean-Pierre Latere, CEO, EsoBiotec
