The firm being acquired is Calimmune, which has an $8.3 million award from the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), as the state stem cell agency is formally known.
CSL Behring announced this morning that it is buying Calimmune for $91 million and as much as $325 million more depending on whether its research meets success milestones.
However, CSL is not interested in the early phase Calimmune trial, which began in 2013 and was scheduled to be completed by this October. John Carroll, writing on the Endpoint News web site, reported this morning,
"CSL, though, plans to let go of control of Calimmune’s lead, clinical program on HIV as soon as possible. In a follow-up to a query, a company spokesperson replied:The California stem cell agency had no immediate comment on the potential impact of the deal. In response to a query this morning, Ronald Mitsuyasyu of UCLA, listed by the NIH as the principal investigator, said he had no comment.
'We are currently evaluating our options for developing this pipeline candidate, which could include licensing or partnering. Given our areas of focus, it is unlikely that we will develop this candidate on our own.'"
The latest CIRM progress report on the research indicated that the trial had been advancing. A notice on the NIH clinical trials web site said, however, that it is no longer recruiting patients. The CIRM progress report said,
"The objective of the Cal-1 therapy is to increase the number of protected cells in the body of an individual infected with HIV to the point where the virus is incapable of causing harm. This would potentially reduce or eliminate the need for a lifetime of antiretroviral therapy."Calimmune was co-founded by David Baltimore, a Nobel Prize winner and former member of the governing board of the state stem cell agency.
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