Moderna Collaboration and License Agreement

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2023

Revenue from Contract with Customer [Abstract]

Moderna Collaboration and License Agreement

Moderna Collaboration and License Agreement

In January 2022, the Company entered into the Moderna License Agreement, which provides for a broad strategic collaboration to discover, develop and commercialize in vivo engineered CAR-M therapeutics for up to twelve oncology programs. Under the Moderna License Agreement, the Company and Moderna initiate research programs during a research term, focused on the discovery and research of products directed to biological targets. Moderna’s mRNA platform builds on continuous advances in basic and applied mRNA science, delivery technology and manufacturing, and has allowed the development of therapeutics and vaccines for infectious diseases, immuno-oncology, rare diseases, cardiovascular diseases and auto-immune diseases. Moderna has the right to designate up to twelve research targets as development targets. The first five research targets have been designated and all programs are currently in the discovery phase. Moderna funds the cost of the Company's activities in accordance with an agreed research budget. The Company is responsible for discovering and optimizing development candidates, and Moderna is responsible for the clinical development thereafter. Pursuant to the Moderna License Agreement, the Company and Moderna formed a joint steering committee (JSC) that is responsible for the coordination and oversight of all research activities to which the Company is responsible for providing. The JSC is comprised of representatives from the Company and Moderna and with Moderna having final decision-making authority, subject to specified limitations.

During the term of the Moderna License Agreement, the Company and its affiliates are subject to various exclusivity obligations under which the Company is not permitted to research, develop or commercialize particular products outside of the collaboration, including products for use as in vivo therapies in the field of oncology, products directed to any target included in the collaboration, or products containing a polypeptide provided by the Company to Moderna in connection with a research program that are directed to any development target. Additionally, the Company has granted Moderna an exclusive worldwide royalty free license to the Company’s intellectual property associated with the product candidates that permits Moderna to conduct its research and development activities. Upon Moderna’s election of a development target (and payment of a related development target designation milestone) for commencement of pre-clinical development of a product candidate, the Company will grant Moderna an exclusive worldwide, sublicensable royalty bearing license to develop, manufacture and commercialize the product candidate.

Under the terms of the Moderna License Agreement, Moderna made an upfront non-refundable payment of $45.0 million to the Company. Assuming Moderna develops and commercializes 12 products, each directed to a different development target, the Company is eligible to receive up to between $247.0 million and $253.0 million per product in development target designation, development, regulatory and commercial milestone payments. Moderna also will reimburse the Company for all costs incurred by the Company in connection with its research and development activities under the Moderna License Agreement plus a reasonable margin for the respective services performed (with a minimum commitment to reimburse $10.0 million in research and development costs over the first three years from execution of the Moderna License Agreement). The Company is also eligible to receive tiered mid-to-high single digit royalties of net sales of any products that are commercialized under the agreement, which may be, subject to reductions. In addition, Moderna has agreed to cover the cost the Company incurs for certain milestone payments royalties the Company owes as a licensor under one of its intellectual property in-license agreements with Penn that the Company is sublicensing to Moderna under the Moderna License Agreement, which royalties Moderna may deduct in part from any royalties owed to the Company. The Moderna License Agreement terminates on a product-by-product basis upon the latest of expiration of the applicable product patents, expiration of regulatory exclusivity and the tenth anniversary of first commercial sale, unless terminated earlier by the Company or Moderna.

At commencement, the Company identified several potential performance obligations within the Moderna License Agreement, including research and development services on research targets, option rights held by Moderna, a non-exclusive royalty-free license to use the Company’s intellectual property to conduct research and development activities and participation on the JSC. The Company determined that there were 2 performance obligations comprised of (i) research and development services and (ii) option rights.

For the research and development services, the stand-alone selling price was determined considering the expected passthrough costs and cost of the research and development services and a reasonable margin for the respective services. The material rights from the option rights were valued based on the estimated discount at which the option is priced and the Company’s estimated probability of the options’ exercise as of the time of the agreement. The transaction price allocated to research and development services is recognized as collaboration revenues as the research and development services are provided to satisfy the underlying obligation related to the research and development target. The transfer of control occurs over this period and, in management’s judgment, is the best measure of progress towards satisfying the performance obligation.

The transaction price of $45.0 million allocated to the options rights, which are considered material rights, will be recognized in the period that Moderna elects to exercise or elects to not exercise its option right to license and commercialize the underlying research and development target.

The Company included the $45.0 million up-front and nonrefundable payment and $73.9 million of variable consideration for expected research and development services to be performed during the five-year contract term, inclusive of passthrough costs, in the transaction price as of the outset of the arrangement. During the year ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, the Company recognized $14.9 million and $9.8 million, respectively, of research and development services as collaboration revenues as the Company is the principal in providing such services. The Company recognized $24.7 million of collaboration revenues since inception of the Moderna License Agreement through December 31, 2023. The following table includes estimated revenue expected to be recognized in the future related to performance obligations that are unsatisfied as of December 31, 2023 (in thousands):

	Transaction price unsatisfied
Performance obligations:
Research and development	$	49,183
Option rights	45,000
Total performance obligations	$	94,183

Amounts due to the Company for satisfying the revenue recognition criteria or that are contractually due based upon the terms of the collaboration agreements are recorded as accounts receivable in the Company’s consolidated balance sheets. Contract liabilities consist of amounts received prior to satisfying the revenue recognition criteria, which are recorded as deferred revenue in the Company’s consolidated balance sheets.

The following table summarizes the changes in deferred revenue (in thousands):

	Year Ended December 31,
	2023		2022
Balance at the beginning of the period	$	47,459	$	—
Deferral of revenue	13,873		57,293
Recognition of unearned revenue	(14,919)		(9,834)
Balance at the end of the period	$	46,413	$	47,459

The current portion of deferred revenue represents advanced payments received from Moderna for costs expected to be incurred by the Company within the next twelve months. The noncurrent portion of deferred revenue represents the $45.0 million upfront, non-refundable and non-creditable payment allocated to customer option right which is not expected to be recognized within the next 12 months.