Celgene boosts cancer portfolio with deal worth up to $2.5 billion with Jounce Therapeutics
pharmafile | July 19, 2016 | News story | Research and Development, Sales and Marketing | Celgene, jounce
Celgene has entered into a collaboration with Jounce Therapeutics that will see the pair jointly develop and commercialise Jounce’s lead oncology candidate, JTX-2011, in a deal worth an initial $225 million with the potential for milestone payments up to $2.3 billion.
JTX-2011 is a monoclonal antibody that binds to and activates a protein on the surface of certain T cells, called ICOS or the Inducible T cell CO-Stimulator, that is believed to stimulate an immune response against a patient’s cancer. It is set to be trialled in numerous different cancer indications.
Under the terms of the deal, Jounce will retain a 60% profit share in the US of JTX-2011, while Celgene will score 75% of the US profit share on the next drug to feature in this collaboration. Outside the US, Celgene will have exclusive commercialisation rights to all treatments developed during the collaboration. Currently, Jounce has up to four early-stage programs from a defined pool of B cell, T regulatory cell and tumour-associated macrophage targets that could feature in the collaboration.
As well as the upfront $225 million payment, and a $36 million equity investment from Celgene, aggregate payments for development, regulatory and commercial milestones could potentially reach $2.3 billion.
Robert Hershberg, chief scientific officer at Celgene, says: “Jounce has built a unique immuno-oncology platform and pipeline with a focus on the development of novel cancer therapies matched to patient populations most likely to respond. This collaboration allows both companies to leverage broad capabilities in immuno-oncology to bring forward a new generation of product candidates for cancer patients.”
Richard Murray, CEO at Jounce, says: “This partnership is of significant strategic value for Jounce. With Celgene as our partner, we can broaden our platform, advance our discovery programs and execute comprehensive clinical strategies, all in the context of our approach to bring the right immunotherapies to the right patient populations.”
Sean Murray
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