Lilly signs Immunocore deal
pharmafile | July 17, 2014 | News story | Research and Development, Sales and Marketing | Cancer, Oxford, biotech, immunocore, lilly
Eli Lilly has signed a deal with one of the UK’s most high-profile biotech firms to research and potentially develop novel T cell-based cancer treatments.
Privately-held Immunocore has already banked agreements with Roche, GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca in the past year to develop its platform of bi-specific biological drugs, called ImmTACs (Immune mobilising mTCR Against Cancer), to treat cancer and viral disease.
These exploit the power of T cell receptors (TCRs) to recognise intracellular changes that occur during cancer or viral infection, setting them apart from traditional antibody-based therapies – which can only recognise changes on the surface of cells – and providing the ability to develop targeted therapies for cancers that are currently poorly served.
“The major goal and challenge of cancer immunotherapy is to direct the immune system to recognise and destroy cancer,” says Jan Lundberg, president of Lilly Research Laboratories. “We believe Immunocore’s ImmTAC platform has the potential to do just that.”
Lilly will pay the Oxfordshire-based company $15 million per programme for the discovery of novel ImmTACs against jointly-selected cancer targets to generate pre-clinical candidates.
Immunocore will get an opt-in fee of $10 million plus an option to cost- and profit-share with Lilly if the US pharma group goes ahead to develop and potentially commercialise one of these candidates.
Should Immunocore not exercise that option, it will still receive ‘significant’ milestone and royalty payments.
“We are very pleased to have entered into this strategic partnership with Lilly, and look forward to working together in an integrated fashion,” says the firm’s chief business officer, Eva-Lotta Allan.
The most advanced ImmTAC is in Phase II trials for the treatment of late stage melanoma.
Founded in 2008, Immunocore has 120 staff and is based in Abingdon. It began life as Avidex, a company spun out of the University of Oxford in 1999 to develop novel TCR Receptor technology.
Adam Hill
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