AstraZeneca Expands Cell Therapy Portfolio with $1 Billion EsoBiotech Acquisition

AstraZeneca has announced a significant expansion of its cell therapy capabilities through the acquisition of Belgian startup EsoBiotech in a deal worth up to $1 billion. The move underscores the pharmaceutical giant's commitment to advancing innovative treatments in oncology and autoimmune diseases.

Strategic Acquisition Boosts In Vivo Cell Therapy Capabilities

AstraZeneca will pay $425 million upfront for EsoBiotech, with the potential for an additional $575 million in milestone payments. The acquisition, expected to close in the second quarter of 2025, will provide AstraZeneca with access to EsoBiotech's ENaBL platform, which utilizes lentiviral vectors to reprogram immune cells within the patient's body.

Susan Galbraith, AstraZeneca's executive vice president of oncology and hematology research and development, emphasized the transformative potential of the technology, stating, "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."

Advancing Off-the-Shelf Therapies

The ENaBL platform offers several advantages over traditional cell therapies:

1. In vivo reprogramming: Immune cells are engineered inside the patient's body, eliminating the need for cell harvesting and lengthy lymphodepletion procedures.
2. Rapid administration: Treatments can be administered through a single intravenous injection that takes minutes, compared to the multi-day process associated with current CAR-T therapies.
3. Increased accessibility: The potential for off-the-shelf therapies could make treatments more affordable and widely available to patients.

EsoBiotech's lead candidate, ESO-T01, which targets multiple myeloma, entered early-stage clinical trials in December 2024. AstraZeneca plans to leverage the ENaBL platform to develop cell therapies for both cancer treatment and autoimmune diseases.

AstraZeneca's Growing Cell Therapy Portfolio

The EsoBiotech acquisition is the latest in a series of strategic moves by AstraZeneca to bolster its position in the cell therapy space:

• June 2022: Acquired TeneoTwo for up to $1.27 billion, gaining the T cell engager TNB-486 (now AZD0486).
• December 2023: Purchased Gracell Biotechnologies for $1 billion upfront, adding the dual-targeting CAR-T therapy GC012F (now AZD0120) to its pipeline.
• November 2023: Entered a $245 million agreement with Cellectis.
• June 2023: Signed a potential $2 billion contract with Quell Therapeutics.

These investments align with AstraZeneca's vision of leveraging cell therapies alongside other advanced technologies, such as radioconjugates and gene editors, to drive future growth in the pharmaceutical industry.