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.