BioNTech is expanding its cancer immunotherapy capability through a new alliance with Medigene, a company whose technology enhances the activity of T cells, making them better able to target and take on tumors.

Medigene’s focus is developing cell therapies from a patient’s own cells, engineering them with a T cell receptor (TCR) that targets an antigen on a cancer cell. Under the deal announced Tuesday, the Munich, Germany-based company will contribute its TCR discovery platform, which will be used to develop TCRs for multiple solid tumor targets that are nominated by BioNTech.

In addition, Mainz, Germany-based BioNTech is acquiring a preclinical Medigene TCR, and it gains an exclusive option to acquire additional TCRs in the Medigene discovery pipeline. Medigene receives €26 million up front, plus research funding for the three-year collaboration.

BioNTech is best known for the Covid-19 messenger RNA vaccine it developed with Pfizer, but cancer was its initial focus—and not just mRNA cancer vaccines. The company’s pipeline includes CAR T-therapies in which a patient’s T cells are engineered to go after specific targets on cancer cells. The most advanced BioNTech CAR T addresses a target found on solid tumors, which could expand the reach of this class of therapies. So far, CAR T-therapies have only been able to treat blood cancers.

BioNTech already has its own technology for discovering and validating TCRs. Programs using that technology are still preclinical. The Medigene alliance gives it another shot at addressing solid tumors with a cell therapy. BioNTech receives an exclusive license to Medigene’s “switch receptor” technology, which develops TCRs that can overcome a mechanism used by tumors to escape the killing activity of activated T cells. The preclinical Medigene TCR that BioNTech is acquiring was developed using this switch receptor technology. This TCR targets PRAME, a tumor-associated antigen that is found in abundance in many types of cancer.

The alliance also grants BioNTech a license to Medigene’s precision pairing library, which allows for specific modifications in the alpha and beta chains that comprise a TCR so that these chains pair with each other. These changes improve the function of TCRs and their expression of the surface of T cells. According to the companies, the licenses enable BioNTech to potentially apply the switch receptor technology and precision library to all of its cell therapy programs.

“This collaboration with Medigene expands our cell therapy portfolio and TCR discovery capabilities, and further strengthens our ability to be a leader in the rapidly emerging field of engineered cell therapies,” Ugur Sahin, CEO and co-founder of BioNTech, said in a prepared statement.

Medigene already has partnerships with 2SeventyBio and Roivant Sciences subsidiary Cytovant Sciences. Programs under both alliances are preclinical. There are other biotechs aiming to develop TCR therapies that have the potential to treat solid tumors. Yet another German company, Tübingen-based Immatics Biotechnologies, is developing TCRs under a partnership with Bristol Myers Squibb, an alliance that began with Celgene, which BMS acquired in 2019. Late last year, BMS built on the collaboration, paying $150 million up front for rights to an off-the-shelf Immatics biologic drug that combines a TCR with a second domain that recruits and activates T cells.

Under its Medigene alliance, BioNTech is responsible for global development of TCR therapies that arise from the agreement. BioNTech will hold exclusive commercialization rights for those therapies. The number of therapies covered by the pact was not disclosed, but Medigene is in line to receive milestone payments reaching up to the triple digit million euros for each program, plus option payments and royalties.

Medigene explains its TCR technology in the following company video:

Photo by Flickr user Marco Verch via a Creative Commons license