Pharma BD Deal Intelligence
Pfizer and Servier both walked away from UCART19 empty-handed: Servier licensed the allogeneic CAR-T from Cellectis in 2015 and expanded the deal in 2020, but Pfizer folded its rights into Allogene Therapeutics in 2018 and Servier discontinued its own program in September 2022, handing remaining ex-US rights to Allogene in 2024—no approval ever reached the market.
Pfizer snags U.S. rights to Cellectis' 'white-hot' UCART19 CAR-T via Servier sublicense — the first major Big Pharma validation of off-the-shelf allogeneic…
Positive framing of the collaboration's strategic value: it 'builds on Pfizer's position in the CAR-T space and our growing portfolio of investigational…
Phase 1 PALL/CALM trials of UCART19 showed 83% complete remission rate across adult and pediatric R/R B-ALL — first clinical proof-of-concept for an allogeneic…
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Servier exercised its exclusive worldwide option from Cellectis for UCART19, an allogeneic CD19 CAR-T, and simultaneously sublicensed US rights to Pfizer. Cellectis received $38.2M at signing plus up to $300M+ in milestones plus royalties. Pfizer's allogeneic CAR-T portfolio later transferred to Allogene Therapeutics (2018); UCART19 program retained by Servier.
Assessment window: 5yr post-close.
6K US cases/yr · 73.2% 5-year relative survival, ALL (SEER 2016-2022)
B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL) is an aggressive cancer of B-lymphocyte precursors, accounting for ~75% of adult ALL and most pediatric ALL. ALL drives ~6,250 new US cases annually with ~126,000 prevalent patients; relapsed/refractory disease historically carries a poor prognosis and is the population for which CD19-directed cell therapies were developed.
By the time Servier exercised its UCART19 option in November 2015, the CD19-directed CAR-T landscape was overwhelmingly autologous: Novartis (CTL019, later tisagenlecleucel/Kymriah), Kite (KTE-C19/axicabtagene), and Juno Therapeutics (JCAR015/JCAR017) were racing toward registration in pediatric/adult B-ALL and DLBCL. All required expensive, slow, patient-specific manufacturing. UCART19 was the first allogeneic 'off-the-shelf' CD19 CAR-T to enter clinical development, leveraging Cellectis' TALEN gene editing to knock out TCRαβ and CD52 in donor T cells. Servier's $38.2M upfront plus >$300M milestone deal — sublicensed to Pfizer for US rights — was widely framed as Big Pharma validation of allogeneic CAR-T economics. Phase 1 PALL/CALM data later showed an 83% complete remission rate in adult and pediatric R/R B-ALL. Pfizer's broader allogeneic CAR-T portfolio (16 preclinical assets plus UCART19 US rights) transferred to Allogene Therapeutics in 2018, while Servier retained ex-US UCART19 rights. Subsequent CD19 CAR-T approvals — Kymriah (2017), Yescarta (2017), Tecartus (2020), Breyanzi (2021) — all autologous — kept allogeneic CD19 commercially behind, though competitors Allogene (ALLO-501A), Caribou (CB-010) and Precision BioSciences (PBCAR0191) continued to pursue the off-the-shelf thesis.
| Deal | Year | Value | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pfizer Inc. and Les Laboratoires Servier / Cellectis SA (UCART19 program) (this deal) | 2015 | $338M | 22 |
| Amgen Inc. / Micromet Inc. | 2012 | $1.2B | 88 |
| Servier / Shire plc (Oncology Business) | 2018 | $2.4B | 88 |
| AstraZeneca PLC / Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc. | 2020 | $39.0B | 86 |
| Swedish Orphan Biovitrum AB / Biovitrum | 2001 | $493M | 84 |
| Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. / Astex Pharmaceuticals | 2013 | $886M | 79 |
| AbbVie Inc. / Pharmacyclics Inc. | 2015 | $21.0B | 79 |
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