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License and royalty revenue
 12 Months Ended
Dec. 31, 2019
License And Royalty Revenue [Abstract]  
License and royalty revenue License and royalty revenue
Novartis Pharma AG
On April 26, 2017, the Company entered into a worldwide license agreement with Novartis. Under the terms of the agreement, Novartis non-exclusively licensed certain patent rights related to lentiviral vector technology to develop and commercialize CAR T cell therapies for oncology, including Kymriah (formerly known as CTL19), Novartis’s anti-CD19 CAR T therapy. At contract inception, financial terms of the agreement included a $7.5 million payment upon execution, $7.5 million of potential future milestone payments associated with regulatory approvals, and $1.1 million of payments for each subsequently licensed product, as well as low single digit royalty payments on net sales of covered products. In August 2017, Novartis received FDA approval for Kymriah and paid the Company $2.5 million as a result of the achievement of a related milestone.
Under Topic 606, the Company identified only one performance obligation, consisting of the license, which was satisfied at contract inception. Accordingly, the nonrefundable license fee of $7.5 million was recognized as revenue upon contract execution in the second quarter of 2017 and a $2.5 million regulatory milestone was recognized as revenue upon milestone achievement, also in the second quarter of 2017, given there were no other unsatisfied performance obligations in the arrangement. Regulatory approvals are not within the Company’s control or the licensee’s control and are generally not considered probable of being achieved until those approvals are received. As such, these milestones are constrained until such time as regulatory approvals are received. Because the single performance obligation was previously satisfied, all regulatory milestones will be recognized as revenue in full in the period in which the associated milestone is achieved.
The Company began recognizing royalty revenue from sales of Kymriah in the fourth quarter of 2017. As the license was deemed to be the predominant item to which the royalties relate, the Company recognizes royalties from the sales of Kymriah when the related sales occur. For the year ended December 31, 2019, the Company recognized royalty revenue of $8.2 million and the cost of license and royalty revenue was $3.0 million. During the year ended December 31, 2018, the Company recognized royalty revenue of $2.2 million and the cost of license and royalty revenue was $0.9 million.
Orchard Therapeutics Limited (assigned by GlaxoSmithKline Intellectual Property Development Limited)
On April 28, 2017, the Company entered into a worldwide license agreement with GlaxoSmithKline Intellectual Property Development Limited (“GSK”). Under the terms of the agreement, GSK non-exclusively licensed certain patent rights related to lentiviral vector technology to develop and commercialize gene therapies for Wiscott-Aldrich syndrome and metachromatic leukodystrophy, two rare genetic diseases. Financial terms of the agreement include a nonrefundable upfront payment of $3.0
million as well as $1.3 million of potential milestone payments for each marketing authorization for each indication in any country as well as low single digit royalties on net sales of covered products. This license agreement was assigned by GSK to Orchard Therapeutics Limited, effective as of April 11, 2018.  
Under Topic 606, the Company identified only one performance obligation, consisting of the license, which was satisfied at contract inception. Accordingly, the entire nonrefundable license fee of $3.0 million was recognized as revenue upon contract execution in the second quarter of 2017 given there were no other unsatisfied performance obligations in the arrangement. Regulatory approvals are not within the Company’s control or the licensee’s control and are generally not considered probable of being achieved until those approvals are received. As such, these milestones are constrained until such time as regulatory approvals are received. There was no revenue recognized under this arrangement in the years ended December 31, 2019 and 2018. Because the single performance obligation was previously satisfied, all regulatory milestones will be recognized as revenue in full in the period in which the associated milestone is achieved.
Given there was no revenue recognized under this arrangement in the years ended December 31, 2019 and 2018, there was no associated cost of license and royalty revenue.
The Company adopted Topic 606 effective January 1, 2018 using the modified retrospective transition method.  Therefore, amounts disclosed pertaining to prior periods are presented under previous accounting guidance.