Gilead Sciences' Kite Pharma has cut off a collaboration with Shoreline Biosciences, ending a research collaboration on off-the-shelf cell therapies that was valued at more than $2.3 billion.
The deal ended in the first quarter of this year, a Gilead spokesperson confirmed to Fierce Biotech. Shoreline did not respond to Fierce’s request for comment.
The team-up had been on tenterhooks since the beginning of 2025, with Shoreline laying off staff related to the effort in January. The revelation follows last month’s news that Roche’s Genentech was terminating a $2 billion cell therapy deal with Seattle-based Adaptive Biotechnologies.
The original June 2021 deal came two months after Kite pitched in to Shoreline’s $43 million series A. Shoreline picked up an undisclosed upfront payment and was eligible to earn more than $2.3 billion in additional payments if certain development and commercial goals were met.
The partners were working to engineer natural killer cells to pursue CAR targets in blood cancers, with the potential to later expand the deal to engineering macrophages as well.
The erosion of the Shoreline deal doesn’t mean Gilead isn’t still making cell therapy moves. The Bay Area biotech behemoth inked a $350 million buyout of CAR-T specialist Interius BioTherapeutics just a few weeks ago, with plans to integrate Interius’ in vivo platform into Kite.