Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire an experimental blood cancer therapy from Orum Therapeutics for up to $180m.
The candidate, ORM-6151, is an anti-CD33 antibody-enabled GSPT1 degrader that has been given clearance from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for early-stage testing in patients with acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) or high-risk myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS).
About 3,100 people are diagnosed with AML each year in the UK, while approximately 2,150 people are diagnosed with MDS.
Orum’s proprietary Dual-precision Targeted Protein Degradation approach, which the company says improves the “critical limitations” of conventional targeted protein degrader product candidates, uses antibodies to precisely deliver small-molecule targeted protein degrader payloads to cancer cells and for other targeted biological therapies.
Sung Joo Lee, chief executive officer of Orum Therapeutics, said the agreement with BMS “validates” the technique.
He continued: “We are excited that BMS has acquired our ORM-6151 programme with proprietary GSPT1 degraders, first-in-class targeted protein degraders with the potential to make an impact for patients with cancer.”
The transaction includes an upfront payment of $100m, with Orum also eligible to receive milestone payments for a total deal value of $180m.
The agreement comes just under a month after BMS said it had agreed to acquire Mirati Therapeutics for up to $5.8bn to boost its oncology portfolio.
BMS will gain access to California-based Mirati’s lung cancer drug Krazati (adagrasib), which was approved by the FDA in December as a treatment option for adults with KRAS-mutated locally advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who have received at least one prior systemic therapy.
The drug is also currently being evaluated in other indications, including in combination with a PD-1 inhibitor as a first-line treatment for NSCLC and as a monotherapy in previously-treated pancreatic cancer.
The US drugmaker also revealed plans earlier this year to double the number of drugs in registrational trials over the next 18 months.
At the time, the pipeline update included a CD19-directed cell therapy expanding into clinical trials for immunologic diseases, a GPRC5D-targeting cell therapy starting a registrational trial in relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma (RRMM), and a BCMA x CD3 T-cell engager advancing into a phase 3 trial, also for RRMM.