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Takeda said Wednesday that it will discontinue all work in cell therapy as part of a strategic portfolio prioritisation. The move, which will lead to an impairment loss of approximately JPY 58 billion ($394 million), mainly relates to the company's gamma-delta T-cell therapy platform.The Japanese firm gained the platform through its purchase of former partner GammaDelta Therapeutics. The deal gave Takeda full access to the latter's allogeneic platforms, including lead candidate GDX012 (TAK-012), an allogeneic variable delta 1 gamma-delta T-cell therapy.The asset had been in a Phase I study for patients with acute myeloid leukaemia, but a pipeline update from July indicated that the trial was no longer running. Takeda said at the time that it was "actively exploring the potential for development in other cancers."Earlier terminationsMeanwhile, the company previously ended development of CD19 CAR-directed natural killer cell therapy TAK-007 for relapsed/refractory B-cell malignancies after making a "data-driven decision." Additionally, work on the autologous CD19 CAR T-cell therapy TAK-940 had earlier ended as part of pipeline prioritisation and Takeda's focus on allogeneic cell therapies.The pharma indicated that while it has no current active clinical trials of cell therapies, it will seek an external partner to leverage the platform technologies and to advance the research and clinic-ready programmes in this field. According to Takeda, fully exiting the cell therapy space will allow it to refocus near-term investments into programmes it believes can deliver transformative therapies to patients at increased speed and scale, using modalities such as small molecules, biologics and antibody-drug conjugates.