Moderna, Carisma Form Collaboration To Develop Cancer Treatment

(RTTNews) - Moderna Inc. (MRNA), and Carisma Therapeutics Inc., announced Monday that they have signed a strategic collaboration deal to discover, develop, and commercialize in vivo engineered chimeric antigen receptor monocyte or CAR-M therapeutics for the treatment of cancer.

According to the terms of the agreement, Carisma will receive a $45 million up-front cash payment and an investment by Moderna in the form of a $35 million convertible note.

Carisma will also get research funding and is eligible to receive development, regulatory and commercial milestone payments, and royalties on net sales of any products that are commercialized under the agreement.

The multi-year collaboration, which will combine Carisma's engineered macrophage technology with Moderna's mRNA and LNP technologies to generate and develop in vivo CAR-M therapeutics, will be funded by Moderna with options for up to twelve targets.

Carisma will be responsible for the discovery and optimization of development candidates while Moderna will lead the clinical development and commercialization of therapeutics resulting from the agreement.