Genentech is continuing its summer of downsizing and cost-cutting, this time with plans to terminate a cell therapy deal worth as much as $2 billion.
The pact is with Adaptive Biotechnologies and originally launched in January 2019. The deal was designed to help Genentech develop personalized cancer medicines based on Adaptive’s T-cell receptor (TCR) tech.
The cancellation of the collaboration and licensing agreement will be final on Feb. 9, 2026, according to an Aug. 18 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
“We highly value Adaptive as an innovative company and partner, and recognize the efforts that both partners have contributed to this collaboration over the last six and half years,” a Genentech spokesperson told Fierce in a statement. “Like any decision to end a collaboration, we have taken the utmost care and thoughtful consideration. This decision was not based on any emerging safety concerns."
Adaptive received $300 million upfront from the deal, with more than $2 billion in milestones originally on the table as well. The Seattle-based biotech’s TruTCR technology is designed to identify T-cell receptors that recognize the unique antigens of a patient’s cancer so that personal therapies can be developed.
“Adaptive appreciates Genentech’s partnership throughout this valuable collaboration. We remain committed to advancing TCR discovery with our digital TCR-antigen prediction model,” an Adaptive spokesperson told Fierce in a statement. “This model could power other novel immunology applications and partnering opportunities. We are also continuing to build out a T-cell depletion program in autoimmunity.”
Genentech’s reneging mirrors a similar deal termination from April 2024 when the Roche company walked away from a cell therapy pact with Adaptimmune worth up to $3 billion. That decision came the same week Genentech cut 3% of its workforce. Several months later, the Bay Area outfit announced a broad rethink of its R&D operations, scrapping its cancer immunology research department.
After a spring of deal-making, Genentech has held two rounds of layoffs this summer—one in June and another in July—and walked away from an oncology R&D pact with Bicycle Therapeutics about a month ago.