LucidQuest Strategic Insights (lqventures.com) >>> Gene&Cell Therapy >> Roche makes ADC deal with China's MediLink Therapeutics for
$50M upfront: Antibody-drug conjugates, one of the creams of the crop in 2023 biopharma dealmaking, are riding into 2024 on a strong note as Roche pays $50 million upfront to collaborate with a biotech in China, where many of the ADC deals have been made recently.
The Swiss Big Pharma is pairing up with Suzhou-based MediLink Therapeutics, which teamed with BioNTech last fall for $70 million upfront and with Zai Lab last April for an undisclosed amount.
In the new deal, Roche’s China Innovation Center will work with MediLink (also known as Suzhou Yilian Biopharmaceutical) on the c-Met-targeted ADC candidate dubbed YL211. They’ll work together on Phase I studies and then Roche will handle all other development and marketing globally, the companies said Tuesday.
The tie-up starts with $50 million in upfront and near-term payments and could grow to nearly $1 billion over time, plus tiered royalties. The partners will test YL211, which is currently in the “clinical application stage,” in solid tumors, MediLink said. The biotech’s candidate goes after c-Met, part of the receptor tyrosine kinase family, which is also targeted by ADCs like AbbVie’s Teliso-V, for which the Big Pharma plans to request accelerated approval.
You get an ADC, you get an ADC: Pharmas bite on oncology’s buzziest class
Tuesday’s move comes amid a flurry of deals in the ADC space, with the most recent high-profile bid coming from AbbVie’s $10.1 billion acquisition of ImmunoGen, which is expected to close in the middle of this year. GSK, Merck, Bristol Myers Squibb and Pfizer, among others, all made multiple ADC splashes last year as they try to carve their place in the hottest area of oncology R&D, which seeks to create more powerful, but more precise, versions of chemotherapy.
Although Roche markets two ADCs — Kadcyla for breast cancer and Polivy for hematology — its pipeline is relatively devoid of ADC candidates. The pharma giant has been busy inking acquisitions in the inflammatory and cardiometabolic spaces in recent months with its purchases of Telavant and Carmot.
The latest deal marks a small departure from Roche’s previous stance on ADCs. In June 2022, then-CEO Severin Schwan told journalists that Roche had “rather limited interest” in the field, noting it was a packed space already, Reuters reported at the time. Thomas Schinecker replaced Schwan last year and presented an updated R&D road map last September, when the company said it was “exploring different modalities,” including ADCs, allogeneic CAR-T and other treatment types.
Charlie Fuchs
But Charlie Fuchs, Roche and Genentech’s global head of product development for oncology and hematology, noted that what makes ADCs “decidedly interesting” is that a… #lucidquest #genetherapy #celltherapy
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