Radek Spisek, SOTIO CEO (Cellestia)
Czech biotech Sotio will pay $29.5 million upfront with a potential $1.03 billion in downstream milestones to license five antibody-drug conjugate programs from LegoChem Biosciences, the partners announced Tuesday.
Details on the collaboration are slim, but Sotio did say the programs would target distinct antigens in solid tumors. The pact will leverage Sotio’s antibody library with LegoChem’s payload-linker technology in what the partners hope will prove a potent combination against cancer.
Here’s what Sotio CEO Radek Spisek had to say about the deal:
At SOTIO we are building an innovative pipeline of ADC programs and plan IND filing for our lead program SOT102 by the end of 2021. The licensing agreement with our new, experienced partner LegoChem allows us to broaden our oncology pipeline with additional programs and solid tumor targets. We are looking forward to using the potential of LegoChem’s ADC technology platform and to develop innovative ADCs for patients in need.
Per the terms of their deal, Sotio will pick up R&D, manufacturing and commercialization for any potential marketed drugs while LegoChem will take on more of an advisory role in the early stages, the companies said.
Korea-based LegoChem has quietly circled in the ADC space for some time, linking research and licensing pacts with a range of small- to mid-size drugmakers over the past few years. But the pace has appeared to quicken in recent months.
Most recently, UK biotech Iksuda announced it was advancing an in-licensed LegoChem ADC, which targets the CD19 antigen and delivers a prodrug dubbed pyrrolobenzodiazepine. Iksuda is expected to file an IND for the drug this quarter with data reading out as early as Q3 2022.
In March, biotech Pyxis revealed a LegoChem in-licensed ADC as part of its growing drug portfolio. That candidate, PYX-202, is also aimed at solid tumors.
Meanwhile, Sotio has built a bustling pipeline of its own with the backing of the PPF Group, a Czech hedge fund that has sprinkled investments in EU biotech. The drugmaker’s most advanced candidate is a IL-15 superagonist, dubbed SOT101, that is currently in Phase II testing. The company has a slate of cancer meds set to enter the clinic within the next 12 months, it said in a release.
For years, paper-based processes and individual point solutions dominated the clinical research landscape, and patient participation in clinical trials was largely an in-person engagement. But when the COVID-19 pandemic took a stronghold, traditional clinical trial methods emerged as inadequate, putting clinical trials and the life sciences industry at a crossroads. Practically overnight, the industry had to rapidly shift to decentralized clinical trial methods, while maintaining data quality and regulatory compliance.
A few weeks after Jennifer Doudna introduced CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing to the world, one of her old students decided to take the central part of the biology-altering invention and kill it.
CRISPR/Cas9, as the name implies, is a two-part system: a string of letters called a guide RNA, that says where to cut the DNA. And an enzyme, Cas9, that does the cutting. Often compared to molecular scissors, it was the first system that allowed researchers to cut DNA with ease and precision, promising potential cures for genetic diseases such as sickle cell and cystic fibrosis.
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Al Sandrock (Biogen via Youtube)
Two years after Al Sandrock jumped from CMO to the top post in R&D — and just months after the hyper-controversial approval of the experimental Alzheimer’s drug aducanumab (Aduhelm) — Sandrock is planning to step out of his long career at Biogen.
Late Monday evening the big biotech put out word that Sandrock, a longtime fixture in the company after a 23-year stint, is hitting the exit.
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Following a similar deal forged by Merck for its Covid-19 drug molnupiravir, Pfizer on Tuesday agreed to allow the UN-backed Medicines Patent Pool to license the company’s potential treatment Paxlovid to make it more readily available in 95 low- and middle-income countries.
The agreement allows MPP to grant sub-licenses to qualified generic drug manufacturers to facilitate additional production and distribution of the investigational antiviral, which has yet to be authorized.
As Merck KGaA makes moves to treat the neglected tropical disease schistosomiasis, it has announced that its treatment arpraziquantel has yielded positive Phase III trial results in children between the ages of 3 months and 6 years old, and the company will now seek regulatory approval.
A pediatric version of the standard drug praziquantel, arpraziquantel is an anti-worm medication that prevents newly hatched, parasitic worms from growing or multiplying inside a patient. The trial could offer a cure for millions.
Glen de Vries (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)
Glen de Vries, the co-founder of the clinical IT software giant Medidata Solutions, died in a plane crash last week.
Emergency crews found the wreckage of a Cessna 172 in a wooded area in northern New Jersey on Thursday. De Vries was an instrument-rated private pilot, though authorities have not yet said who was piloting the plane. He was with his flight instructor Thomas Fischer, 54, and the plane was headed to Sussex Airport from Essex County Airport in Caldwell. He had started his private pilot training with Fischer in February 2016. Fischer opened the flight school with his wife Jodi in March 2012.
Chiquita Brooks-LaSure (Photo by Caroline Brehman/CQ Roll Call via AP Images)
Although sales of Biogen’s expensive new Alzheimer’s drug have been anemic since the approval in June, the prospect of CMS eventually paying for it opens up a billion-dollar can of worms, and already has the agency defending some premium and deductible increases for seniors.
CMS explained late Friday that Medicare Part B will have to increase its standard monthly premium — from $148.50 in 2021 to $170.10 in 2022 — in part because of the massive spending that could occur should the agency sign off on a national coverage decision for the drug, known as Aduhelm, and its $56,000 annual price tag next year.
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UK-based AI-assisted R&D biotech Synthace just wrapped up a Series C round, bringing in $35 million.
Per a company statement this morning, the investment will fuel commercial and go-to-market (GTM) growth as Synthace continues to expand across the Atlantic into the US. This includes plans to expand its leadership team by bringing in new VPs of marketing and sales to join US-based Guy Levy-Yurista, Synthace’s CEO.
Patrick Amstutz, Molecular Partners CEO
Molecular Partners CEO Patrick Amstutz knew going into the NIH’s ACTIV-3 study that the bar for ensovibep was ‘very high.’ A slew of Covid-19 antibodies had already flunked out of the trial — and though their Novartis-backed antibody alternative was different, he expressed cautious hope.
On Tuesday, however, he revealed that ensovibep didn’t clear that bar.
Ensovibep’s ACTIV-3 days are over after failing a futility analysis in hospitalized Covid-19 patients, the company announced. The molecule comes from a class of drugs developed by Molecular Partners that aims to perform the same functions as antibodies with far more target specificity and antiviral protection.
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https://endpts.com/a-czech-biotech-bets-big-on-rising-adc-player-legochem-as-part-of-licensing-pact-aimed-at-solid-tumors/
