Roche will be gaining exclusive global rights to Innovent Biologics’ DLL3-targeted antibody drug conjugate (ADC) candidate in a deal worth over $1bn.
The agreement gives Roche exclusive global rights to develop, manufacture and commercialise IBI3009, which targets an antigen with low expression in normal tissues but significantly overexpressed in certain cancers, particularly small cell lung cancer and other neuroendocrine tumours.
The candidate, which has just entered phase 1 clinical development, has already shown promising anti-tumour activity in multiple tumour-bearing mouse models and has demonstrated a favourable safety profile, according to Innovent.
Both companies will jointly focus on the early-stage development of the drug, after which Roche will take over full development.
In exchange, Innovent will receive an upfront payment of $80m and will be eligible for up to $1bn in development and commercial milestone payments, as well as with tiered royalties on net sales.
Boris Zaïtra, head of corporate business development at Roche, said: “We are excited to enter this partnership with the Innovent team to further develop this promising investigational treatment for patients with small cell lung cancer.”
ADCs are a relatively new class of cancer drugs that combine the selectivity of antibodies with the cell-killing properties of chemotherapy or other anti-cancer agents. Unlike chemotherapy, which works by attacking lots of different cells as well as the cancer, ADCs are designed to target and kill tumour cells while sparing healthy ones.
IBI3009 was developed using Innovent’s proprietary novel topoisomerase 1 inhibitor platform and, according to the biopharma, is one of the “leading and potentially best-in-class DLL3-targeting ADCs”.
Samuel Zhang, Innovent’s chief business officer, said: “We are delighted to once again enter a strategic collaboration with Roche… to advance our potentially best-in-class DLL3 ADC candidate.”
The deal comes just over a month after Roche announced that it will be acquiring Poseida Therapeutics in a deal worth $1.5bn, giving it access to a range of cell therapy candidates and related platform technologies.
The company also recently entered into an agreement worth over $1.8bn with Flare Therapeutics to discover small molecule treatments aimed at previously undrugged transcription factor targets in oncology.