Moderna, Immatics announce strategic multi-platform collaboration

Moderna (MRNA) and Immatics N.V. (IMTX) announced a strategic research and development collaboration to pioneer novel and transformative therapies for cancer patients with high unmet medical need. This broad multi-platform collaboration will leverage the deep scientific expertise and core operational capabilities of both companies, combining Immatics’ TCR platform with Moderna’s cutting-edge mRNA technology, and span various therapeutic modalities including bispecifics, cell therapy and cancer vaccines. The strategic R&D collaboration between Moderna and Immatics focuses on three pillars: Applying Moderna’s mRNA technology for in vivo expression of Immatics’ next-generation, half-life extended TCR bispecifics targeting cancer-specific HLA-presented peptides. Enabling the discovery and development of novel mRNA-based cancer vaccines by leveraging Moderna’s deep knowledge of mRNA science and customized information from Immatics’ wealth of tumor and normal tissue data included in the target discovery platform XPRESIDENT and its bioinformatics and AI platform XCUBE. Evaluating Immatics’ IMA203 TCR-T therapy targeting PRAME in combination with Moderna’s PRAME mRNA-based cancer vaccine. The collaboration contemplates conducting preclinical studies and a Phase 1 clinical trial evaluating the safety and efficacy of the combination with the objective of further enhancing IMA203 T cell responses.