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Deal-Making, Financing Coalesce Around Promising CAR-T Space In Cancer

A huge IPO for Kite Pharma and two massive venture rounds for Juno Therapeutics have those two newer companies out in front in CAR therapeutics, but bigger, more established firms like Novartis, Pfizer and Celgene are in the game, while other companies, like biotech Bellicum, are looking to get in. Can Kite and Juno stay ahead and stand alone?

Cancer immunotherapy has been one of the busiest and buzziest therapeutic spaces in recent years, but within that field approaches to modulate chimeric antigen receptors (CAR) are attracting eye-opening amounts of public and private financing and spurring a wave of deal-making as big pharma tries to keep pace with a pair of pure-play biotechs focused on the space.

Kite Pharma Inc., focused on an engineered Autologous Cell Therapy (EACT) platform and building upon research into CAR and T-cell receptor (TCR) engineered cells by Steve Rosenberg and his...

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