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news.US-based biotechnology firm Aduro BioTech has entered into an agreement granting Janssen Biotech (Janssen) an exclusive, worldwide license to certain product candidates specifically engineered to treat prostate cancer based on its new LADD immunotherapy platform.
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As part of the deal, facilitated by the Johnson & Johnson Innovation center, Aduro is eligible to get about $365m in upfront license fees and milestone payments following achievement of defined development, regulatory and commercialization milestones, if multiple programs advance to commercialization, as well as tiered royalties on worldwide net sales.
The deal will see Janssen assume responsibility for all research, development, manufacturing, regulatory and commercialization activities for the licensed products.
Under a separate deal, Aduro has granted Janssen exclusive rights to its GVAX technology for prostate cancer.
Aduro chairman, president and chief executive officer Stephen Isaacs said the company is happy to provide Janssen with new immunotherapies engineered specifically for this indication.
"We believe this is an important validation of our platform strategy and we are excited to have the Janssen development team taking the lead in advancing the prostate cancer program," Isaacs said.
"Separately, we look forward to continued progress with our LADD platform in a broad array of other oncology indications, including pancreatic cancer, mesothelioma, non-small cell lung cancer and glioblastoma among others."
LADD is a proprietary platform of live-attenuated double-deleted Listeria monocytogenes strains that have been engineered to induce a potent innate immune response and to express tumor-associated antigens to induce tumor-specific T cell-mediated immunity.