Agreements

Date: 2017-03-20

Type of information: Development agreement

Compound: probodies for up to six oncology targets including CTLA-4

Company: BMS (USA - NY) CytomX Therapeutics (USA - CA)

Therapeutic area: Cancer - Oncology

Type agreement: licensing development

Action mechanism: monoclonal antibody. Probodies are monoclonal antibodies that are selectively activated within the cancer microenvironment. They are designed to take advantage of unique conditions in the tumor microenvironment to enhance the tumor-targeting features of an antibody and reduce drug activity in healthy tissues. By remaining inactive until they are activated by proteases in the tumor microenvironment, Probody therapeutics bind selectively to cells within tumor tissue with reduced binding to healthy tissue, potentially improving or creating a therapeutic window. Probody therapeutics may also have application in other diseases where proteases are dysregulated in affected tissues.

Disease:

Details: * On May 27, 2014, BMS and CytomX Therapeutics announced the companies have signed a worldwide research collaboration and license agreement to discover, develop and commercialize novel therapies against multiple immuno-oncology targets using CytomX's proprietary Probody™ Platform. Under the terms of the agreement, CytomX will grant BMS exclusive worldwide rights to develop and commercialize Probodies for up to four oncology targets including CTLA-4, a clinically validated immune inhibitory checkpoint receptor. BMS will have certain additional rights to substitute up to two collaboration targets.

Financial terms: BMS will make an upfront payment of $50 million to CytomX and provide research funding over the course of the research term. CytomX will also be eligible to receive additional preclinical payments and up to $298 million in future development, regulatory and sales milestone payments for each collaboration target, as well as tiered midsingle-digit rising to low-double-digit royalty payments on net sales of each product commercialized by BMS.

Latest news:

• On March 20, 2017, BMS and CytomX Therapeutics announced an expansion of their 2014 strategic collaboration to discover novel therapies that will include up to eight additional targets using CytomX’s proprietary Probody platform. As part of the original collaboration signed in May 2014, BMS selected four oncology targets, including CTLA-4. In the collaboration to date, BMS has progressed the CTLA-4 Probody therapeutic to IND-enabling studies and the three other programs are in the lead discovery and optimization phase.Now, CytomX will grant BMS exclusive worldwide rights to develop and commercialize Probody therapeutics for up to six additional oncology targets and two non-oncology targets. BMS will make an upfront payment of $200 million to CytomX and, in addition, will provide research funding over the course of the research term. CytomX will also be eligible to receive up to $448 million in future development, regulatory and sales milestone payments for each collaboration target, as well as tiered royalties from the mid-single digits to low-double digits on net sales of each product commercialized by BMS.
• On December 13, 2016, CytomX Therapeutics announced that BMS has selected a clinical candidate for its CTLA-4 Probody program under the strategic oncology collaboration established in May 2014. Achieving this milestone results in a $2 million payment to CytomX.
• On December 5, 2016, CytomX Therapeutics announced the selection of the fourth target by BMS under the companies’ current strategic oncology collaboration established in 2014. As a result, BMS will pay CytomX $15 million. This constitutes the final target selection under this agreement.
• On January 20, 2016, CytomX Therapeutics announced the selection of a third target by BMS in accordance with the companies’ strategic oncology collaboration established in May 2014, triggering a $10 million milestone payment.

Is general: Yes