Under the terms of the agreement, BioInvent will apply its antibody discovery technology to generate and develop monoclonal antibody candidates. The collaboration will initially focus on the development of antibodies in the field of inflammation.
And HGS and BioInvent will each have the right to participate in development and global commercialisation of each antibody candidate, and will share research, development, manufacturing and commercialisation costs as well as future revenues. Specific terms were not disclosed.
BioInvent’s antibody discovery platform, n-CoDeR, contains over 20 billion human antibody genes, a far greater number than those naturally available in the human immune system. This provides a greater likelihood of finding antibodies with both high affinity and specificity against a particular target. BioInvent has a broad portfolio of therapeutic antibodies, with four products currently in clinical development in the fields of thrombosis, atherosclerosis and cancer.
Thomas Watkins, president and chief executive officer of HGS, said: “We continue to make progress in advancing our late-stage products toward commercialization, and at the same time we remain committed to building and advancing our research pipeline to ensure sustainable growth well into the future. We look forward to collaborating with BioInvent to apply their proprietary technology to the development of targeted new therapies based on HGS discoveries.”
Svein Mathisen, chief executive officer of BioInvent, said: “Access to commercially attractive targets to which we can apply our antibody discovery engine is an important part of BioInvent’s strategy. We believe this collaborative agreement is a strong and valuable way of building our pipeline of innovative drugs as BioInvent and HGS’s research strengths are both complementary and synergistic. We are looking forward to working closely with HGS in what we believe will be a long-term, productive collaboration.”