Kite, HiFiBio partner to develop TCR screening platform

HiFiBiO Therapeutics (Cambridge, Mass.) and the Kite Pharma Inc. unit of Gilead Sciences Inc. (NASDAQ:GILD) partnered to develop HiFiBio's CelliGo single cell technology as a high-throughput screening approach to discover for shared antigen and neoantigen TCRs for use in adoptive cancer cellular therapies.

HiFiBio will receive an upfront payment of $10 million and is eligible for research milestones. Kite will have the option to exclusively license the platform to screen patient-derived T cell repertoires and identify TCRs for cell therapies. HiFiBio declined to disclose financial terms; Kite did not respond to inquiries...