Kiadis to close as Sanofi tones down oncology focus

French pharma major Sanofi (Euronext: SAN) is to close Kiadis, the Dutch natural killer (NK) cell company that it acquired in 2020 for $357 million.

At the time of the acquisition, the Paris-based firm was confident that Kiadis’ platform had the potential to make products rapidly and economically available for a broad patient population across a wide range of liquid and solid tumors, and create synergies with Sanofi’s immuno-oncology pipeline.

It was hoped the buy would build on Sanofi’s emerging presence in immuno-oncology, providing the opportunity for Kiadis’ NK cell-based medicines to be developed alone and in combination with the larger company’s existing pipeline and platforms.