Bayer signs cancer vaccine research deal
pharmafile | August 6, 2013 | News story | Research and Development, Sales and Marketing | Bayer, Vaccine, compugen
Bayer has entered into a new collaboration with Compugen to develop cancer vaccines aimed at helping the body fight off the disease.
Under the agreement, Israel-based genomic specialist Compugen will receive an upfront payment of $10 million, but is eligible to receive over $500 million in potential milestone payments, as well as $30 million associated with pre-clinical activities.
Compugen could also receive mid to high single digit royalties on global net sales of any resulting products under the collaboration.
This comes a month after the German company signed a deal with Seattle Genetics to use its antibody-drug conjugate process, to develop treatments to target tumours without affecting healthy cells.
Today’s collaboration is for the license agreement for the research, development and commercialisation of antibody-based therapeutics for cancer immunotherapy against two Compugen-discovered immune checkpoint regulators.
Bayer and Compugen will both work on a pre-clinical research programme, while Bayer will have full control over further development and have worldwide commercialisation rights for potential cancer therapeutics.
“Bayer is committed to translating the science of cancer research into effective therapies helping people affected by cancer live longer and improve their quality of life,” said professor Andreas Busch, head of global drug discovery at Bayer.
“Antibody-based immunotherapies are promising approaches in oncology which can stimulate the body’s own immune cells to fight cancer cells. Immunotherapy is one of our focus areas in oncology research. We are looking forward to expanding our portfolio in this area through partnering with Compugen.”
The immunotherapy approach aims at combatting cancer by stimulating the body’s own immune cells.
This has become an increasingly common target in modern oncology treatments after the world’s first cancer vaccine – Dendreon’s Provenge went on sale in 2010 for prostate cancer.
Since then a number of firms have started to target the body’s immune response to cancer for potential treatment, and in 2011 Bristol-Myers Squibb found success when its melanoma vaccine Yervoy received US approval.
Compugen said its researchers are developing specific therapeutic antibodies that are geared to block the immunosuppressive function of these targets, and to reactivate the patient’s anti-tumour immune response in order to fight cancer.
Anat Cohen-Dayag, president and chief executive of Compugen, added: “We are very excited to initiate this collaboration with Bayer, a leading global life science company with a broadening oncology franchise, for the development of antibody-based cancer immunotherapies against these two promising novel immune checkpoint targets.
“In addition, we believe that the prediction and validation of these two targets, through the use of our broadly applicable predictive discovery infrastructure, provides additional validation for our long-term commitment to establishing this unique capability.”
Ben Adams
Related Content
Evotec and Bayer announce new kidney disease study
Evotec and Bayer have announced the initiation of a phase 2 clinical study in kidney …
BioNet receives positive EMA opinion on new pertussis vaccine
BioNet has received a positive opinion from the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use …
Recipharm offers manufacturing support to vaccine trial from ImmBIO and iiCON
Recipharm, a contract development and manufacturing organisation (CDMO), has successfully manufactured PnuBioVax, a new protein-based …
