bluebird bio and Gritstone Oncology Announce Strategic Collaboration to Develop Novel Cancer Cell Therapies

bluebird bio (Nasdaq:BLUE) and Gritstone Oncology announced a collaboration to research, develop and commercialize products for the treatment of cancer using cell therapy.

As quoted in the press release:

“By combining our expertise in gene and cell therapy with Gritstone Oncology’s unique target identification and TCR technology, we hope to bring the power of cell therapy to a broader set of newly-validated targets, enabling us to treat previously unaddressable patient populations,” said Philip Gregory, D.Phil., chief scientific officer of bluebird bio. “As we expand our immuno-oncology focus and portfolio, this collaboration with Gritstone Oncology is highly complementary to our goal of rapidly advancing novel cellular therapies with the potential to transform the lives of people with cancer, particularly in solid tumor indications.”

“As the field of immuno-oncology has evolved, it has become clear that targeting T-cell therapeutics to solid tumors in a highly specific manner is vital to enable potent tumor cell killing with sparing of normal tissues,” said Andrew Allen, M.D., Ph.D., president and chief executive officer of Gritstone Oncology. “We believe that our artificial intelligence-based approach to identifying tumor-specific targets and corresponding, naturally occurring TCRs, combined with bluebird bio’s expertise in gene and cell therapy, will allow us to develop cellular immunotherapies against differentiated oncology targets. We look forward to collaborating with the bluebird bio team in order to develop innovative treatments for patients in need.”

Click here to read the full press release.