Blackstone Life to invest up to $250 million in Autolus Therapeutics

8 November 2021

UK-headquartered cancer immunotherapy company Autolus Therapeutics (Nasdaq: AUTL) and Blackstone Life Sciences today announced that they have entered into a strategic collaboration and financing agreement under which funds managed by Blackstone (NYSE: BX) will provide up to $250 million in equity and product financing to support Autolus’ advancement of its CD19 CAR-T cell investigational therapy product candidate, obecabtagene autoleucel (obe-cel), as well as next generation product therapies of obe-cel in B-cell malignancies.

News of the deal saw Autolus’ shares leap almost 27% to $7.20 in pre-market US trading.

Assuming that obe-cel gets to the market, it would compete with Novartis’ (NOVN: VX) Kymriah (tisagenlecleucel), Gilead Sciences’ (Nasdaq: GILD) Yescarta (axicabtagene ciloleucel) and Bristol Myers Squibb’s (NYSE: BMY) Breyanzi (lisocabtagene maraleucel – liso-cel) in treating a range of blood cancers.

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