Date: 2016-07-11
Type of information: Licensing agreement
Compound: NKR-2 T-cell immunotherapy
Company: Celyad (Belgium) Ono Pharmaceutical (Japan)
Therapeutic area:
Type agreement: development - licensing - commercialisation
Action mechanism:
- cell therapy/immunotherapy product/gene therapy/CAR-T cell therapy. Celyad’s lead candidate, NKR-2, is a T-Cell engineered to express the human NK receptor, NKG2D, which is an activating receptor that triggers cell killing through the binding of NKG2D to any of eight naturally occurring ligands that are known to be overexpressed on more than 80% of tumors.
- Preclinical results indicate that NKR-2 has multiple mechanism of actions and goes beyond direct killing by signifying that its encoded T-cells attack the tumor cells, inhibit the mechanisms that enable tumors to evade the immune system, activate and recruit anti-tumor immune cells and disrupt the blood supply to the tumor. These mechanisms promote the induction of adaptive immunity, meaning the body develops a long-term cell immune memory against specific tumor antigens of the targeted tumor.
- In contrast to traditional CAR-T therapeutic approaches, and based on strong preclinical evidence, Celyad’s current NKR-2 program does not employ patient lymphodepleting pre-conditioning, thereby avoiding the toxicities associated with chemotherapy and allowing the immune system to remain intact.
- Celyad is developing both autologous and allogeneic NKR-2 administrations. For autologous NKR-2, Celyad collects the patient’s own T-Cells and engineers them to express NKG2D in order to target cancer cells effectively. Celyad’s allogeneic platform engineers the T-Cells of healthy donors, that also express TCR Inhibitory Molecules (TIMs), to avoid having the engineered donor cells be rejected by the patient’s normal tissues.
Disease:
Details:
- On July 11, 2016, Celyad announced an exclusive license agreement with Ono Pharmaceutical, for the development and commercialization of Celyad’s allogeneic NKR-2 T-cell immunotherapy in Japan, Korea and Taiwan. This license agreement opens new markets to Celyad and expands the global footprint of its NKR-2 T-cell cancer immunotherapy treatment and potentially for other disease conditions.
- Under the terms of the agreement, Celyad will continue developing its allogeneic NKR-2 T-cell immunotherapy in the EU and US territories, and Ono will be responsible for future development and commercialization in Ono’s territories (Japan, Korea and Taiwan). Both companies will also explore the opportunity to collaborate to collectively run global registration trials and combination trials. In addition, Celyad grants to Ono an exclusive option to license for development and commercialization of its autologous NKR-2 T cell product in the above Ono territories.
Financial terms: Celyad will receive an upfront payment of 1.25 JPY B (€11.25 million or $12.5 million) and is eligible of up to 30.075 JPY B (€270.75 million or $299 million) in development and commercial milestones. Celyad will also receive double digit royalties based on net sales of the licensed product in Ono’s territories.
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Is general: Yes
