Allogene snags a competitor — and a friend

Allogene Therapeutics, the allogeneic T-cell therapy company launched by billionaire urologist and Kite Pharma founder Arie Belldegrun, is unveiling a high-profile recruit today: It’s bringing over Dr. Rafael Amado, president of R&D at Adaptimmune, a competitor.

Adaptimmune is also in the business of engineering immune cells to attack cancer, and has been working toward an allogeneic T-cell therapy to treat cancer. It’s a nice little reunion: Amado worked once with Belldegrun at UCLA, and also with David Chang, Allogene’s CEO, at Amgen.