Ascentage Pharma Enters Global Licensing Agreement with Takeda for Olverembatinib; AbbVie In-Licenses Mingji Biopharma's Preclinical TL1A Antibody FG-M701; GSK Signs Multi-Year Data Licensing Deal with Ochre Bio

Jun 17, 2024 19:07 CST Updated 19:07

GSK

Pharmaceutical R&D Manufacturer

Ochre Bio

RNA Drug Developer

Takeda Pharmaceuticals Obtains Global Exclusive License for Ascentage Pharma's Third-Generation TKI Olverembatinib

On June 14, Ascentage Pharma announced that it had reached a collaboration with Takeda, granting an exclusive license agreement for its third-generation BCR-ABL tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI), Olverembatinib (商品名：耐立克®), which has best-in-class potential.

According to the terms of the option agreement, Ascentage Pharma will receive a $100 million option payment upon signing the agreement and is eligible to receive up to approximately $1.2 billion in option exercise fees as well as additional potential milestone payments. Additionally, Ascentage Pharma will obtain a minority equity investment from Takeda.

Orelabrutinib is currently on the market in China and has received approval for two indications: treating adult patients with CML in the chronic phase (-CP) and accelerated phase (-AP) who are resistant to any TKI and harbor the T315I mutation; and treating adult patients with CML-CP who are resistant or intolerant to first- and second-generation TKIs.

Once the option is exercised, Takeda will obtain a global license to develop and commercialize olverembatinib, excluding certain regions such as mainland China, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the Macao Special Administrative Region, and Taiwan.

According to the agreement, before the exercise of the license option, Jiangsu Ascentage Pharma Development Co., Ltd. will be solely responsible for all clinical development matters related to Olverembatinib.

AbbVie and Mabgenix Reach Licensing Agreement to Develop Next-Generation Inflammatory Bowel Disease Therapy

On June 13, 2024, AbbVie and Mabgenix Biopharma (Beijing) Co., Ltd. jointly announced a licensing agreement to develop the TL1A antibody FG-M701.

According to the agreement, AbbVie will obtain the exclusive global license for the development, manufacturing, and commercialization of FG-M701. Mabgenix will receive an upfront payment and near-term milestone payments totaling $150 million and is eligible to receive subsequent clinical development, regulatory registration, and commercialization milestone payments of up to $1.56 billion, as well as tiered royalties of up to a low double-digit percentage of net sales.

FG-M701 is the first autoimmune pipeline from Mingji Biotech, a fully human monoclonal antibody targeting TL1A, a target that has been clinically validated in inflammatory bowel disease. Compared with the first-generation TL1A antibodies, FG-M701, through unique engineering modifications, aims to provide higher efficacy for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease and reduce dosing frequency, demonstrating the potential to be the best-in-class. It is currently in the preclinical development stage.

GSK Signs Multi-Year Data Licensing Agreement with Ochre Bio

On June 12, Ochre Bio, a leading company in the field of chronic liver disease drug development, announced that it had signed a multi-year data licensing agreement with GSK. This collaboration will allow GSK to utilize Ochre Bio's computational biology, cell biology, and perfused human organ research platforms to generate proprietary human liver datasets, as well as gain non-exclusive access to the latter’s extensive historical liver database.

This collaboration will enable Ochre Bio and GSK to deepen their understanding of liver biology, aligning closely with GSK's focus on liver diseases. It aims to further clarify priorities and accelerate the development of liver disease drugs. Both Ochre Bio and GSK can utilize this data to build better artificial intelligence models, which will help improve experimental accuracy while reducing the need for experimental data, facilitating target selection.

Editor：Allen