McDermott Advised Smart Immune on the Acquisition of a Stake by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in the Company

McDermott Will & Emery advised Smart Immune, a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing ProTcell, a thymus-based T-cell therapy platform to fully and rapidly re-arm the immune system and to treat cancer and infectious disease, on the acquisition of a stake by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The investment from the Gates Foundation will help advance a new Phase I/II clinical trial in adult acute leukemia patients of Smart Immune’s lead asset, SMART 101, an allogeneic cell therapy product produced from healthy donor mobilized peripheral blood. This trial design has been developed to improve the capacity of leukemia patients to fight cancer and infection after standard of care haplo-identical stem cell transplantation.

The McDermott team that advised Smart Immune was composed of Emmanuelle Trombe, partner, Ludivine Rabreau, Alice Sevestre and Alice Villagrasa, associates, of the Life Science / Corporate team.