BioInvent identifies and develops novel immunomodulatory, first-in-class antibodies for cancer therapy. The intention is to significantly improve the efficacy of current checkpoint inhibitors and/or activate immunity against cancer in patients who are no longer responding to treatment.
Broad clinical pipeline and international collaborations
BioInvent has several clinical candidates under development with BI-1206 in the lead, followed by BI-1808, BT 001 and BI-1607Parts of the portfolio are implemented in collaboration with other companies such as ALMOST (license agreement for China including Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan), MSD (clinical delivery and collaboration agreement and Transgene. (50/50 joint venture). Furthermore, the company has a portfolio of clinical programs operated by external parties as a result of previously entered into partnerships that can generate potential milestones and royalties on future sales.
The latest in a series of agreements was signed last week with California-based Exelixis, a biotechnology company focused on oncology. Exelixis, which is part of Standard & Poor's (S&P) MidCap 400 index and which has brought four pharmaceutical products to market, wants to diversify and broaden its pipeline through the agreement with BioInvent.
Exclusive option and license agreement with Exelixis
BioInvent will be responsible for the initial discovery and development work with target structures and antibodies, as well as the preclinical characterization of mechanisms of action. BioInvent will use its proprietary n-CoDeR antibody library and the patient-centered screening platform FIRST, which enables parallel identification of target structures and antibodies.
The agreement with Exelixis represents further validation of BioInvent's platforms, which is why the company regularly attracts both institutional capital and multinational partners.
USD 25 million upfront plus milestone payments and royalties
Exelixis will pay BioInvent USD 25 million upfront for the right to select three target structures identified in the collaboration. Once a drug candidate against a target structure has been identified, Exelixis can exercise an option to in-license and further develop the drug candidate.
Upon exercise of the option, Exelixis shall pay BioInvent an option fee and be responsible for all future development and commercialization activities for the drug candidate, including potential ADC and bispecific antibody technology activities.
In addition, BioInvent is entitled to success-based milestone payments tied to development and commercialization, as well as incremental royalty payments on annual net sales for each product that is successfully commercialized within the framework of the collaboration.
In a press release, Peter Lamb, Ph.D., Executive Vice President, Scientific Strategy and Chief Scientific Officer, Exelixis:
“Expanding our biologics pipeline is strategically important to us and this agreement gives Exelixis access to BioInvent’s expertise in antibody and cancer immunology, with a focus on the innovative discovery platform FIRST, which can screen samples from cancer patients in a short time and identify novel antibodies and targets with promising therapeutic potential. We believe this patient-centric and biology-driven approach has great potential to identify novel targets and thus enable the development of differentiated, antibody-based immuno-oncology treatments.”
Martin Welschof, CEO of BioInvent, added:
“BioInvent’s primary focus is to translate our expertise in cancer immunology and antibody biology into innovative immuno-oncology therapies that can improve patient outcomes. Exelixis has a history of both successful commercialization of novel cancer drugs and productive collaborations that integrate diverse and complementary skills and technologies – such as toxin and cytokine conjugation of monoclonal antibodies and bispecific antibody technologies – to identify and develop innovative therapies with significant clinical and commercial potential. We believe that our expertise and discovery platform in cancer immunology can help Exelixis expand its pipeline of biologics and we look forward to working together.”