Finance and Economics APP learned that on September 30th, Prime Medicine (PRME.US) announced a strategic R&D collaboration and licensing agreement with Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY.US) to jointly develop the next generation T-cell therapy. This collaboration will combine Prime Medicine's precise multi-gene editing capabilities with Bristol-Myers Squibb's expertise in developing and commercializing innovative cell therapies.

According to the agreement, Prime Medicine will design and optimize Prime Editors for selected specific targets, and use its PASSIGE technology platform. Bristol-Myers Squibb will be responsible for the development, manufacturing, and commercialization of the next generation cell therapy, while Prime Medicine will support the product's gene editing strategy and reagent development.

At the same time, Prime Medicine will receive $55 million upfront payment and $55 million in private equity investment, and will be eligible for over $3.5 billion in milestone payments, including up to $1.4 billion in development milestones and over $2.1 billion in commercialization milestones.

Prime Medicine's technology combines Prime Editing with integrase or other site-specific recombinases to introduce large gene cargoes into the genome for stable cargo expression. PASSIGE is delivered through a entirely non-viral manufacturing process, which does not introduce double-stranded DNA breaks or off-target editing, and can achieve more precise and effective gene modifications.

Dr. Keith Gottesdiener, President and CEO of Prime Medicine, said: "This collaboration will leverage our PASSIGE technology, which will drive a step-wise, non-viral, thousands of base pairs in size gene editing method into the clinic. PASSIGE and Prime Editing have a huge opportunity to fundamentally transform the field of cell therapy, and we look forward to expanding our impact through internal and collaborative efforts."