Gilead’s Kite Pharma signed a research and licensing deal with China’s Pregene Biopharma worth up to $1.64 billion, including a reported $120 million upfront, to advance in vivo CAR‑T and next‑generation cell therapy approaches. Companies said the collaboration aims to speed clinical proof‑of‑concept studies by combining Kite’s development experience with Pregene’s in vivo platforms and manufacturing capabilities. The deal follows industry moves where large cell therapy players seek in vivo methods to bypass ex vivo manufacturing bottlenecks. Both companies highlighted oncology and autoimmune applications among target areas; financial terms layer upfront payments with milestone potential and regional rights. The agreement underlines Big Biotech’s continued strategic investment in technologies intended to make CAR‑T scalable and less resource‑intensive. Clarification: in vivo CAR‑T refers to approaches that generate therapeutic, gene‑edited T cells inside the patient’s body rather than engineering cells ex vivo and reinfusing them.