Under the agreement, Carisma will receive a $45 million upfront cash payment and an investment by Moderna in the form of a $35 million convertible note. Carisma will receive research funding and is eligible to receive development, regulatory, and commercial milestone payments plus royalties on net sales of any products that are commercialized under the agreement.

Carisma will be responsible for the discovery and optimization of development candidates while Moderna will lead the clinical development and commercialization of therapeutics resulting from the agreement. Moderna has the option to nominate up to 12 targets for development and commercialization.

Moderna has transformed from a research-stage company advancing programs in the field of mRNA to an enterprise with a diverse clinical portfolio of vaccines and therapeutics across six modalities.

Carisma is a biopharmaceutical company dedicated to developing a differentiated and proprietary cell therapy platform focused on engineered macrophages, cells that play a crucial role in both the innate and adaptive immune response.