Prime Medicine (PRME, Financial) has announced a strategic research and development collaboration and licensing agreement with Bristol Myers Squibb (BMY) to develop next-generation T-cell therapies. This partnership brings together Prime Medicine's precise multi-gene editing capabilities and Bristol Myers Squibb's expertise in developing and commercializing innovative cell therapies.
Under the agreement, Prime Medicine will design optimized Prime Editors for specific targets using their PASSIGE technology platform, while Bristol Myers Squibb will handle the development, manufacturing, and commercialization of the next-generation cell therapies. Prime Medicine will support the genetic editing strategies and reagent development for these products.
Prime Medicine will receive an upfront payment of $55 million and a $55 million equity investment. Additionally, they are eligible for over $3.5 billion in milestone payments, including up to $1.4 billion for development milestones and over $2.1 billion for commercialization milestones.
The company's technology combines Prime Editing with integrases or other site-specific recombinases to introduce large genetic payloads into the genome ensuring stable expression. Their PASSIGE platform delivers these edits through a completely non-viral manufacturing process that avoids introducing double-strand DNA breaks or off-target edits, enabling more precise and effective gene modifications.
Prime Medicine's president and CEO, Dr. Keith Gottesdiener, highlighted the collaboration's potential to leverage their PASSIGE technology, which advances a non-viral, multi-kilobase gene editing approach into clinical stages. He emphasized that PASSIGE and Prime Editing hold significant promise to transform the cell therapy landscape through both internal and collaborative efforts.
