Under the agreement, Genmab has acquired exclusive worldwide rights to eight proteins identified and characterized by Bionomics using its proprietary Angene angiogenesis platform with potential utility in cancer and other diseases.
Bionomics will receive an upfront fee and additional fees upon the first target achieving specified preclinical and clinical milestones. Bionomics will also receive milestone payments and royalties on product sales for each product that reaches the market.
“We are pleased to exclusively license these targets from Bionomics, with which we have had an excellent working relationship since early 2002,” said Dr Lisa Drakeman, CEO of Genmab. “We believe that inhibiting angiogenesis bears promise for the development of antibody therapeutic approaches in angiogenesis-related diseases including cancer. These targets enrich and further strengthen Genmab’s growing preclinical pipeline.”
Bionomics will retain rights to a large number of additional proprietary proteins it has discovered in its angiogenesis program, including the target BNO69. Bionomics is continuing to develop BNO69 as a target for small molecule therapeutics for the treatment of breast cancer.