Poseida Therapeutics, Inc., a clinical-stage cell and gene therapy company advancing a new class of treatments for cancer and rare diseases, reported a $50 million strategic investment by Astellas Pharma US, Inc. The investment is comprised of the purchase of shares of common stock for $25 million and an additional $25 million one-time payment for certain strategic rights.

Mark Gergen, Poseida’s CEO said, “We are excited to announce a strategic investment by Astellas, a premier global pharmaceutical company that shares our strategic vision for the future of genetic engineering and cell and gene therapies. This investment further validates our technology and approach and also reflects our broad strategic options in progressing the business. Based on this investment and cost control measures implemented in the business, we are extending our cash runway guidance as we remain focused on being good stewards of capital.”

Kristin Yarema, president of cell therapy at Poseida said, “We are continuing to advance the Phase 1 trials for both P-BCMA-ALLO1 and P-MUC1C-ALLO1 and the data we have generated has led us to find improvements that we believe have the potential to greatly benefit our allogeneic portfolio. We have implemented a number of these already in our clinical-stage programs, as we continue steady progress in dose-ranging and explore approaches such as raising conditioning lymphodepletion to emerging industry norms and exploring additional dosing and administration options. We are also improving our manufacturing process in ways that will further increase product yield and are encouraged by the early signals we are seeing in this area also. Overall, we remain highly excited about the potential of our allogeneic platform and our ongoing opportunities for continuous improvement.”