Takeda-Turnstone Deal

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-19/takeda-makes-bet-on-viral-cancer-killers-in-deal-with-turnstone

Takeda has signed a deal with Turnstone Biologics for their Vaccinia Virus Platform.

"RIVAL-01 is Turnstone’s lead candidate consisting of the vaccinia virus backbone encoding three potent immunomodulators, Flt3 ligand, anti-CTLA-4 antibody, and IL-12 cytokine, specifically designed to work together to drive immune activity and re-program the microenvironment to be best suited for tumor eradication. When the vaccinia virus enters and replicates in cancer cells throughout the body, the transgenes are expressed. The resulting local production of these therapeutics at the site of tumors add to the inherent oncolytic and microenvironment modifying properties of the virus to form a powerful multi-modal attack on the disease."

Up-front: $120 million
Milestones: $900 million

This approach is very similar to our CHECKVacc, by using the vaccinia virus as the backbone to attach adiditional genes which enhances anti-cancer immunotherapy.