Artiva collaborates with Merck & Co. to develop cell therapies for $30M up front

Artiva Biotherapeutics Inc. is collaborating with Merck & Co. Inc. to develop cell therapies for an up-front payment of $30 million.

Under the companies' agreement, San Diego-based Artiva's proprietary chimeric antigen receptor-natural killer, or CAR-NK, technology will be used in the development of NK cell therapies for cancer.

In addition to the up-front payment, which covers the first two programs under the collaboration, Artiva may receive $15 million for a third program if Kenilworth, N.J.-based Merck exercises its option.

The privately held biotechnology company may also receive up to $612 million per program in potential development and commercial milestone payments, as well as royalties on global sales.

The pharmaceutical giant will provide research funding for each program. The therapies to be developed are based on NK cells, which plays a protective role against tumors, instead of the disease-fighting T cells found in early CAR-T therapies. Unlike T cells, NK cells can penetrate tumors and prevent complications of an allogeneic transplant, a procedure wherein in a person's stem cells are replaced with new, healthy stem cells.

Artiva's off-the-shelf allogeneic NK cell manufacturing platform will be used for large-scale production of the resulting therapies.