Agenus to buy XOMA’s biologics manufacturing facility

Additionally, Agenus obtained an exclusive license to a phage display library from IONTAS, and entered into an agreement for cell line development technology with Selexis. These new capabilities, in combination with Agenus’s Retrocyte DisplayTM and SECANT yeast display platforms, will result in a broad, vertically integrated and highly productive in-vitro antibody discovery and production platform.

The acquisition of XOMA’s facility will enable Agenus to manufacture checkpoint modulator (CPM) antibodies to meet its growing GMP antibody production requirements for development and future clinical trials. Agenus will offer employment to experienced XOMA professionals currently operating the facility.

The transaction is expected to close in December, subject to customary closing conditions.

Agenus chairman and CEO Garo Armen said: "We look forward to working with the team currently at the XOMA facility and welcoming them to Agenus. With these three transactions, we will have assembled one of the most comprehensive and integrated capabilities in the industry.

"These capabilities provide us with unique advantages in an era where quality, efficiencies and speed of development and commercialization are paramount to successfully developing a new generation of biopharmaceutical products. Our goal is to bring highly effective novel therapies to patients while addressing the burden of rising healthcare costs."

The Selexis (Geneva, Switzerland) collaboration will offer Agenus significant advantages in the creation of high expressing and stable master cell lines needed for antibody manufacturing.

The transaction with IONTAS (Cambridge, UK) further strengthens our suite of best-in-class approaches to developing and optimizing antibodies as potential new medicines. Combined, these three transactions are expected to result in significant cost savings and greater overall efficiencies, leading to faster, less expensive, and improved product development.

Agenus will use its newly acquired capabilities to accelerate the development of its portfolio of CPM candidates for its own programs and those of potential collaborators. These added capabilities will uniquely position Agenus, allowing it to exploit its technological and development capabilities and also facilitate new partnership opportunities beyond its current portfolio.

Agenus chief scientific officer Robert Stein said: "We can now apply a highly effective suite of approaches that have the advantage of incorporating three complementary display technologies for discovering antibodies with superior pharmacological and pharmaceutical characteristics.

"At Agenus, we integrate the use of these display platforms with innovative computational, structured-based design approaches to discover and optimize potential best-in-class monoclonal antibodies as future medicines. Our partnership with IONTAS will be a unique opportunity to collaborate with John McCafferty, a pioneer of the Phage Display approach and one of the world’s leading experts in its use for discovery of therapeutic antibodies. Separately, the addition of the Selexis cell line development capabilities and the XOMA antibody pilot plant will allow us to advance our broad and growing CPM portfolio into clinical studies with greater speed, quality, and control."

Under the terms of the agreement with XOMA, Agenus will pay at closing $5m in cash and up to $1m in common stock.

In addition to the XOMA manufacturing facility and a team of qualified CMC scientists from XOMA, Agenus will also gain access to selected XOMA antibody technologies as part of the agreement. These costs, as well as costs related to the Iontas and Selexis transactions, should be more than offset by savings associated with reduced contract manufacturing expenses.