Alpine Immune Sciences Inc. said Gilead Sciences Inc.'s Kite Pharma Inc. unit terminated a collaboration to develop cancer immunotherapies, effective June 20.

Through the October 2015 research and license agreement, Kite was granted an exclusive license to two programs from Alpine's transmembrane immunomodulatory protein technology for applications to antigen receptor and T cell receptor products.

Under the collaboration, Kite Pharma made an up-front payment of $5 million along with additional payments to support Alpine's research. Alpine was also eligible to receive a total of $530 million in pre‐specified research, clinical and regulatory milestones.

Kite Pharma's decision was due to the expiration of the agreement's research term, Alpine Immune noted.

On May 15, Alpine Immune signed a collaboration with U.K.-based Adaptimmune Therapeutics PLC to develop immunotherapies for solid tumors.