Oxford, UK – 10 October 2014: Oxford BioMedica plc (LSE: Oxford Biomedica), (“Oxford Biomedica” or “the Group”) a leading gene and cell therapy company, announces today that it has signed further contracts with Novartis which build on the collaboration with Novartis announced in May 2013.
Under the terms of the new agreement, Novartis will pay $14 million upfront including a $4.3 million equity subscription for a non-exclusive worldwide development and commercialisation licence in oncology under the Group’s LentiVector® platform. Oxford Biomedica will manufacture lentiviral vectors expressing CTL019/CART-019. The manufacturing contract has an initial three year term. Additionally, Oxford Biomedica has granted Novartis an exclusive licence for the worldwide development and commercialisation of all Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T cell products arising from the process development collaboration.
According to the terms of the deal, Oxford Biomedica is eligible to receive up to $90 million from Novartis over the next three years. This amount includes the upfront licence payment, the equity investment, manufacturing and process development services and various performance incentives. The equity investment comprises 70,807,500 ordinary shares at 3.8p, the average middle market price for the 10 business days prior to 7 October 2014. Oxford Biomedica will also receive undisclosed royalties on potential future sales of CTL019 and other CAR T cell products covered by the agreement.
Commenting on the announcement, John Dawson, Chief Executive Officer of Oxford BioMedica, said:
“We are delighted to sign a second agreement with Novartis. Oxford BioMedica now has a breadth of leading capabilities in gene and cell therapy under-pinned by a dominantLentiVector® patent estate (licensed to multiple companies), and a state-of-the-art GMP manufacturing facility. Today’s commitment from Novartis, including their equity investment, strongly endorses this. Our team has demonstrated its ability to solve complex gene and cell therapy manufacturing challenges, and to develop the state-of-the-art analytics essential for such programmes.
“Oxford BioMedica aims to help facilitate access to life changing treatments for many more patients with a variety of clinical indications and is now strongly positioned to deliver significant value-creating results against its strong asset base.”
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Conference call details
Oxford BioMedica will host a conference call and Q&A session for analysts and investors at 09:30am BST today. The call will be hosted by John Dawson, CEO, and Tim Watts, CFO.
Conference call details are as follows: UK dial in: 0800 694 1478, international dial in: +44 (0) 1452 580933, Conference ID: 16956796.
An audio replay file will be made available shortly afterwards via the Company’s website at; Media/Download centre/Webcasts and audio ” section. Alternatively, you may listen to the replay by dialling the following number: UK dial in: 0871 700 0145, international dial in: +44 (0)1452 550000 (available until 04/11/2014 11:30 BST), conference ID: 16956796.