Curis up on second major Genentech pact

Under the terms of the new agreement, Genentech has committed to pay Curis an up-front license fee of $3 million and up to an additional $6 million over the next two years to support research at Curis dedicated to the collaboration.

The agreement also provides for Genentech to make cash payments to Curis contingent upon the successful achievement of certain developmental, clinical, and drug approval milestones. Genentech will also pay a royalty on net product sales if product candidates derived from the collaboration are successfully developed.

The total potential cash payments to Curis from the transaction could exceed $140 million (if two products are commercialized in two indications each), excluding royalties on potential net product sales. In addition, Curis reserves the right to use small molecule modulators of the pathway that are discovered as result of the collaboration for ex vivo cell therapy purposes in areas outside of oncology and hematopoiesis.

“The Hedgehog pathway, together with this new pathway, which now form the basis of our collaborations with Genentech, may be important regulators of tumor progenitor cell proliferation, and thus inhibitors of these pathways may prove to be more effective than conventional treatments for certain cancers,” commented Dr Lee Rubin, Curis’ executive vice president and chief scientific officer.

“We are very pleased to be broadening our relationship with Genentech, and we view this new collaboration as a significant endorsement of Curis’ drug development approach,” he added.