On August 7, 2017 Celyad (Euronext Brussels and Paris, and NASDAQ:CYAD), a pioneer in the discovery and development of CAR-T cell therapies, and its fully-owned subsidiary OnCyte LLC, reported revised terms to their agreements with Celdara Medical LLC and Dartmouth College (Filing, 6-K, Celyad, AUG 7, 2017, View Source [SID1234520066]).

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Following encouraging initial results of the THINK trial, which have led to increased confidence in the long-term potential of Celyad’s CAR-T assets, Celyad has amended its existing agreements with Celdara Medical, LLC and Dartmouth College. Under the amended agreements Celyad will receive an increased share of future revenues generated by these assets, including revenues from its sublicensees. In return, Celyad will pay Celdara Medical LLC and Dartmouth College an upfront payment of $12.5 million (€10.6 million) and $12.5 million worth of Celyad shares at a share price of €32.35 corresponding to a 14% premium versus last trading day.

Christian Homsy, CEO of Celyad, commented: "With our increased confidence in the clinical opportunity of our lead product candidate CYAD-01 and the significant potential value creation opportunities of our allogeneic IP patents, we have decided to shift some of the value of the original deal upfront, in order to increase our share of potential future revenues from sublicenses. We believe these revised agreements provide incremental value to Celyad’s shareholders while the increased ownership of Celdara Medical in Celyad signals a clear and long-term commitment to our development of promising CAR-T cell therapies."

Celyad obtained access to its CAR-T NKR cell drug product candidates and related technology, including technology licensed from Dartmouth College, in January 2015, through its acquisition of OnCyte, LLC from Celdara Medical, LLC, a privately-held U.S. biotechnology company. This portfolio included three autologous CAR-T cell therapy products and an allogeneic T cell platform. Since the acquisition, Celyad has focused on further developing the portfolio and is currently in pre-clinical or clinical phase for a number of product candidates.

Christian Homsy, CEO of Celyad, further commented: "The upfront payment related to our deal with Novartis covers partially the cash portion of our renewed agreements with Celdara Medical LLC and Dartmouth College. Therefore, our ability to finance all of our operations remain unaltered. With our current cash position, we continue to have the means to fund our operating expenses and capital expenditure requirements through H1 2019."

Through its activities and expertise, Celyad is gaining international recognition for the discovery and development of CAR-T cell therapies and has established partnerships with industrial and academic world-class players such as Novartis (Switzerland), ONO Pharmaceutical (Japan), Moffitt Cancer Center (United States) and Institut Curie (France).