Aveo will pay Xoma an up-front license fee, development milestones and royalties. Aveo retains all development and commercialization rights to AV-299. More specific financial terms were not disclosed.
“Xoma's clinically-validated HE technology is intended to accelerate product development timelines for the AV-299 program, while increasing the potential for clinical and commercial success,” said Tuan Ha-Ngoc, Aveo's president and CEO.
AV-299 is a high-affinity antibody whose binding to HGF potently neutralizes the biological activities of HGF in vitro and in vivo. The HGF/c-Met pathway is frequently deregulated in different types of human cancers and is thought to play an important role in regulating tumor growth, invasion and metastasis.