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news.Amgen has acquired global rights to a preclinical cancer immunotherapy treatment developed by Advaxis.
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The companies struck a collaboration deal for the development and commercialization of ADXS-NEO.
Under the deal, Amgen will pay Advaxis $40m upfront along with a $25m equity investment.
Advaxis will lead clinical development of the drug and retain manufacturing rights. Clinical trials for ADXS-NEO are anticipated to start in 2017.
Amgen will pay Advaxis up to $475m in development, regulatory and sales milestone payments. It will also make royalty payments on sales.
Amgen research and development executive vice president Sean Harper said: "Amgen's collaboration with Advaxis leverages and enhances our development and commercialization expertise in novel immuno-oncology treatments.
"We look forward to partnering with Advaxis to advance this highly targeted and patient-specific treatment option for patients."
The collaboration brings together Amgen's development expertise in immuno-oncology with Advaxis' My Immunotherapy Neo-Epitopes (MINE) program.
MINE and ADXS-NEO are designed to activate a patient's immune system to respond against the unique mutations that feature in individual patient's tumor.
MINE will assess the immunologic and anti-tumor activity of the patient tumor-specific, neoepitope-based immunotherapy.
The companies will use learnings from MINE to find and target neoepitopes using Advaxis Lm Technology.
They will later develop patient specific immunotherapy constructs that feature the neoepitope sequences found in the patient's tumor cells.