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news.OPi SA and Vaccinex have entered into a licensing agreement whereby OPi has been granted worldwide rights to OPR-003, a fully human anti-interleukin-6 (IL-6) antibody.
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According to the agreement, Vaccinex will be eligible to receive milestone payments and royalties and will have the opportunity to participate as a co-development partner in certain markets. No other financial details were disclosed.
In 2004, OPi and Vaccinex initiated a research collaboration to discover fully human antibodies derived from elsilimomab, a murine anti-IL6 antibody proprietary to OPi with positive proof-of-concept clinical data in malignant haematological diseases. The collaboration successfully identified a panel of high affinity fully-human anti-IL6 antibodies with functionality comparable to elsilimomab.
A US patent application was filed on these compounds and OPi has initiated preclinical development.
Inhibiting IL6 has recently become a promising therapeutic path for the treatment of inflammatory disorders, such as rheumatoid arthritis, and of several onco- haematological diseases, such as multiple myeloma and some aggressive B-cell lymphomas.