With the US$368m licence deal, Elevation Oncology, Inc is recognising Synaffix’s expertise in ADC development for the development of EO-1022. In contrast to Synaffix’s November deal with the Chinese BigHat Bioscience Co. Ltd, the US company does not book Lonza’s ADC manufacturing services that offers the same quality assurance process for all (clinicla) development phases, but wants to keep ADC manufacturing in its own hands.
Under the agreement, Synaffix, which had licence agreements worth araound US$10bn biobucks before the US$160m acquisition by Lonza signed this June, will give Elevation Oncology global access to its clinical stage, site-specific ADC technology platform, including GlycoConnect antibody conjugation technology, HydraSpace polar spacer technology, as well as the toxSYN linker-payload, SYNstatin E™, which enables the transformation of Elevation Oncology’s antibody into a differentiated ADC to treat solid tumours. Synaffix spun out three pipeline ADCs to KIVU Biosciences Inc right before the take-over with Lonza, before KIVU announced a US$92m Series a financing at the end of October.
Synaffix is eligible to receive up to US$368m in upfront and clinical, regulatory, and commercial milestone payments, plus tiered royalties on net sales of EO-1022, if approved. Synaffix is responsible for manufacturing the components related to its proprietary technologies, and Elevation Oncology is responsible for the research, development, manufacturing, and commercialization of the ADC.
As the preclinical-to-clinical phase transition rate of ADCs is 15% as opposed to antibody drugs (10%) and small molecules (5%), many companies go for ADCs. However, current ADCs suffer from high toxicities due to unstable linkers and off-target binding. Like other companies in the ADC field, that is dominated by Chinese developers and CDMOs, Synaffix tries to find the optimal drug to antibody ration for a given toxic payload-antibody combination to improve the therapeutic index.
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