Santa Monica Life Science Firm Kite to Acquire Interius BioTherapeutics for $350 Million

Santa Monica-based Kite, a Gilead company, agreed to acquire Interius BioTherapeutics, a privately held biotechnology company developing in vivo CAR therapeutics, for $350 million.

“In vivo therapy is a promising frontier with the potential to transform how we approach treating patients, shifting to more accessible and scalable solutions,” said Cindy Perettie, executive vice president of Kite, in a statement. “By combining Interius’s teams and their novel platform with Kite’s deep expertise and footprint in cell therapy research, development and manufacturing, we aim to advance best-in-class in vivo therapies to bring them to patients more efficiently.”

This acquisition complements Kite’s expertise in cell therapy by incorporating Interius’s integrating in vivo platform. This approach enables the generation of CAR T-cells directly within the patient’s body and may offer a more durable and long-lasting therapeutic effect by inserting DNA into the patient’s genome. Interius’s innovative, off-the-shelf yet personalized approach is designed to be delivered via a single intravenous infusion, eliminating the need for preconditioning chemotherapy and complex cell processing.

“This marks a pivotal step for Interius and the future of in vivo therapy, which has the potential to reduce treatment timelines, broaden access to care and improve outcomes for patients with aggressive or advanced disease,” said Phil Johnson, president and chief executive of Interius BioTherapeutics, in a statement.

Interius’s team and operations will integrate into Kite’s established research team, creating a center of excellence in Philadelphia to accelerate the development of next-generation in vivo therapies.

TD Cowen is acting as exclusive financial advisor to Kite, and Evercore is serving as exclusive financial advisor to Interius.

Information for this article was sourced from Interius BioTherapeutics.